


In April

by hiuythn



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Everyone Thinks They're Together, Everyone knows that they're in love, Humor, Hurts So Good, Jealous Iwaizumi Hajime, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Oblivious Oikawa Tooru, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 07:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10157984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiuythn/pseuds/hiuythn
Summary: Tooru dates people and it takes Hajime awhileto figure out why he hates it. Like six years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my grades suffered for this

First, it’s a girl.

Sweet, lovely, blonde and foreign, fluent in Japanese and smelling like roses, she draws attention the moment she walks into Kitagawa Daiichi’s halls halfway through second term.

Hajime first catches sight of her on a Monday morning, walking into the school’s entrance. He’s at his locker, slipping on his shoes, a hand stuffed in his pocket and idly smoothing over the grooves of his keys when she walks in. He stares as long as any other person would, which is to say, a lot.

This might be Hajime’s first year, but even he knows they hardly ever get transfers this late, nevermind _foreign_ transfers.

She’s got her hair in two loose braids and her uniform is worn perfectly down to the crisp shape of the bow that sits demurely at her neck. There’s an easy smile on her face and a pleasing tint of pink on her lips and cheeks.

Overall, very pretty. Hajime guesses she’ll have a fanclub by the end of first period.

His eyes drop down at a slight movement in the edges of his vision and finds them landing on her hands.  They’re clutched tight around the straps of her bag and the skin around her knuckles are red from the October wind and Hajime thinks of the mittens in his bag, the ones Tooru forgot at his house last night.

The girl catches his gaze, and they blink at each other, both a little off-kilter with that awkward air of two strangers meeting. Then, she smiles, small and shy and Hajime nods back.

“You’re new? Do you need help finding your class?”

 

 

 

“I’m telling you, Hajime—”

“Will you shut up already—”

But Tooru just barrels on, loud and annoying, like that freaky-looking blue train with a face from that TV show that Tooru’s baby nephew keeps watching. “I saw her looking my way during class when she turned around to pass on the papers!”

Hajime slurps noisily from his juice box, mouth pursed around the straw and a dark frown on his face. He’s thirty seconds away from head-butting Tooru out the window. It’s lunch break. Lunch break is for relaxing, a chance to wind down before he has to spend a whole hour doing math. Not for listening to your idiot friend prophesizing about his star-crossed love with the new girl.

“Iwaizumi, look over here.”

He turns, still frowning, and a cheerful camera click goes off. He blinks, scowl falling away.

A phone lowers and Shimura Mikoto smirks at him, tapping away at her phone.

“I’m setting this as my lockscreen—anyone tries to open it? Gets the ultimate death glare, courtesy of one Iwaizumi Hajime.” She shows him the photo and cackles, rice stuck to her chin.

Hajime rolls his eyes, but he’s gotta admit, it does look pretty funny.

“You guys aren’t listeniiiiiingggg,” Tooru whines, flopping his upper body onto Hajime’s desk, barely missing the empty lunch boxes teetering at the edges. Hajime sighs and goes to put them away before they fall.

Shimura tucks her phone into her skirt—pocket, skirt-pocket, Hajime doesn’t know, he doesn’t pretend to know anything about how the girls’ uniform works—and props her chin in her hands, giving Tooru the fakest grin he’s ever seen.

“You have my utmost attention, _Oikawa-sama_. Please, proceed.”

Tooru narrows his eyes at her, lower lip jutting out. He looks stupid. Stupider.

Hajime stuffs everyone’s lunch boxes back into their bags, leaning to his right and throwing them on the two desks next to him. To his left, Shimura and Tooru have started a staring contest and Hajime eyes the doorway at the back of the class. He can make it before the two idiots notice. Probably.

“Don’t even think about it, Hajime. You haven’t listened to a single word of my story so I need to retell it and you’ll _listen_ this time.”

Hajime groans, slumping back into his seat. “What’s there to tell? You met the new girl on your way to the teacher’s lounge and said hi and now you think you two are meant to be. Even though she’s clearly out of your league.”

Tooru gasps, “Hajime, how dare you!”

“No, he’s right.” Shimura says, and her eyes are locked onto something—the new girl, Hajime realizes, following her gaze.

The girl—Rebecca, he remembers her saying, walks into the classroom, lunch box swinging from her hand, laughing freely and surrounded by a couple other classmates. Hajime guesses they’re the ones who’re responsible for the simple half-updo Rebecca sports and the flowers woven into her hair. Altogether, the colours of the flowers, the rich gold of her hair, and the soft lilt to her laugh easily makes her the brightest thing in the classroom.

“Waaayyy outta your league, Oikawa.” Shimura says.

Hajime glances over at Tooru and nearly busts a gut. The idiot practically has his jaw on the floor, his hands still poised in one of his over-blown gestures, sauce on his face and staining his shirt. His brown eyes are opened wide and—wait. Are they sparkling? They’re _sparkling._ What kind of shoujo _bullshit_ —

“I’m gonna ask her out.” Tooru breathes.

Hajime throws his crushed juice box at Tooru’s head.

 

 

Tooru does ask her out. The next day, in fact. And by the end of lunch break, Hajime and Shimura are watching from behind a tree as Tooru and Rebecca walk back to the school entrance, hand in hand, Rebecca holding a stuffed teddy bear and a box of chocolates.

“So. He’s the first to get a girlfriend.” Shimura says, picking at a scab on her arm.

Hajime blinks. “Oh. Right.” He hadn’t realized, too caught up with thoughts of their upcoming practice match. He still hasn’t really got this volleyball thing down, yet, but Tooru said it’d be fun.

Shimura gives him a strange look, and stands, smoothing out her skirt. “I’m betting…hmm…end of term?”

“End of—ohh.” Hajime smirks. “After Christmas.”

That earns him a sour glare. “That could mean anywhere from a day after to ten years after.”

“Fine. In the week following Christmas.”

“Six days’ worth of meat buns?”

“Ehh. Three days.”

“Four.”

“Done.”

Hajime goes to spit in his hand, but Shimura wrinkles her nose. “Just a normal handshake, you animal. I’m not doing that weird spit-shake you and Oikawa do. Unsanitary.”

Hajime rolls his eyes, but sticks out his hand and they shake on it.

 

 

Kitagawa Daiichi’s power couple lasts until just before New Year’s, like Hajime guessed, and it’s Tooru who tells them when school starts up again, crying nonstop and blubbering incoherently, butchering half his words, that Rebecca had to move away. Apparently her family does that a lot.

Hajime doesn’t know what to do but they’re on the street and the old ladies are starting to frown at them so he starts dragging Tooru by his collar back to Hajime’s house. Shimura dutifully follows after them with their bags, Tooru’s because he threw it to the ground during his fit of dramatics, and Hajime’s because he has to use both his hands, his entire upper body and maybe his teeth, to get Tooru’s butt through Hajime’s front door and onto his couch.

“Iwaizumi, I’m leaving your bags here, okay?” Hajime turns to see Shimura leaning the bags by the coat-rack, a foot already out the door.

Quick as lightning, Hajime slides across the floor in his socks and grabs her by the wrist, eyes blazing. “You are _not_ leaving me alone with him.”

Shimura tugs at her wrist and hisses back, “You’ve known him since he was in diapers, you know how to deal with him the best.”

“Not this! First girlfriend, first breakup—what the heck am I supposed to do? Hug him and sing a lullaby?” Hajime whispers furiously.

“Yes? I don’t know! I know even less than you—let go of me, I’m going while I’ve still got the chance, man, c’mon, don’t betray me like this.” Shimura slaps at his arm.

“ _I’m_ not the one doing the betraying here!”

“Guys? What are you doiiiingg??? I’m in pain here! I can’t believe my friends left me here to DIE, I’m DYING, this is so cruel.” A loud sniffle.

Shimura drops her head. Hajime closes his eyes. There is a beat of silence in the Iwaizumi household and then, like a two-month infant, Tooru starts wailing again, little whimpers of “Rebecca, I will never forget you” and “How do I move on.”

Silently, like war-weary soldiers, Hajime and Shimura start towards the closet and the kitchen respectively, for blankets and ice cream, suffering and despair written in the slump of their shoulders.

 

 

Later, after a truly horrendous marathon of old alien/monster movies and snot-soaked tissues, of awkward back rubs and mumbled assurances, of ice cream dripping onto floors and couches, Hajime finds himself lying on the floor, gazing at a crack in the ceiling, just taking the moment to _breathe_.

 _I’m never having kids,_ he thinks. If it’s anything like the past few hours? He would rather fling his grandmother off a cliff.

The TV is still on, the credits of the last movie scrolling up the screen, ominous music playing. It’s 8pm and his parents are home, muffled voices coming from the master bedroom. They didn’t even blink when they walked through the front door and saw Tooru wrapped up in blankets on their couch and going to town on a tub of ice cream.

Shimura had fled then, taking the opportunity to make small-talk with Hajime’s mom before bolting out the front door like the devil was on her heels. The traitor.

At least he’ll get those four days’ worth of meat buns, starting tomorrow. He narrows his eyes. He’ll make sure of it.

Tooru is spread out on the couch, a foot on the back of it and the other in his hands, picking at the dead skin. He’s so gross. His face is scrunched up and a sliver of tongue peeks out behind pursed lips. They’re stained white and pink because the dumbass refused to eat anything but the vanilla and strawberry blocks of the Neapolitan ice cream. Hajime hates it when Tooru does that because he ends up having to finish off the chocolate and it’s not like he hates chocolate, but it’s _unfair_ , he wants the other flavours too.

“What are you making that ugly face for, Hajime?” Tooru lets go of his foot and it lands back on the couch cushions with a _fwump_. Hajime thinks of all the dead skin flying into the air and scowls harder.

“I’m not making any faces.”

Oikawa turns on his side, an action that shouldn’t involve as much wiggling and flailing as it does. “You are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes. You. Are.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“You stink!”

“I’m not the one with boogers hanging from his nose!” Hajime sticks out his tongue at Tooru, who slaps a hand to his nose, glaring at Hajime. He moves it an inch away from his face, going cross-eyed as he stares down at his palm.

Then he jerks his head up, voice accusing, “You lied! I don’t have boogers on my face!”

“So? You’re pretty much a booger anyway.” Hajime faces the other way, nose turned up.

Tooru screeches, high and grating, and leaps from the couch in a flurry of pillows and blankets, landing on Hajime’s stomach, legs on either side of him. Hajime wheezes, arms coming up to bat at Tooru’s head. Tooru swipes back at him, eyes narrowed against Hajime’s swinging arms and yelling, “Take that back!”

Hajime grunts, kicks his legs and squirms violently, trying to dislodge Tooru. It doesn’t work, and Tooru ends up hitting Hajime a few more times on the face before Hajime uses his trump card and tickles Tooru right on the stomach, soft flesh giving way under his stubby fingers.

“Noooo!!!” Tooru goes down, kicking and screaming. Hajime can finally breathe.

They both lie there, on the unforgiving hardwood floor, panting. The credits have ended by now, and the VCR whines quietly on the TV stand. They’re both still in their school uniforms, wrinkled and stained from the day’s activities. The portable heater buzzes by the couch, and the warmth dissipates just inches away from their frozen toes.

“Rebecca was really nice.” Tooru says.

Hajime hums, a faint acknowledgment.

“She had really pretty hair and her fingers were small and she had a dog named Biscuit and I bought her takoyaki and hair clips with the money I was going to use for that volleyball magazine and it’s fine, I don’t mind because she was all smiley and pink, and then we went bowling on Christmas—her idea—and it was _fun_ , but we were supposed to go to the temple on New Years but we _didn’t_ because she’s gone and we forgot to exchange numbers, Hajime, _I forgot_ and now I’ll _never_ talk to her again—” Tooru breaks off in sniffles, covering his face with his sleeves.

A single tear travels from the corner of his eye to the shell of his ear, curving around the shape of it. Hajime stares at it, at the wet streak it leaves on his friend’s face.

He lifts his hand, the one closest to Tooru, and lays it tentatively on Tooru’s stomach, fingers curled slightly. Tooru’s breath hitches, and Hajime feels his cheeks warm and he’s about to pull away when Tooru reaches down and grips his hand shyly.

Tooru’s face is still covered, now with an arm flung across his eyes, and Hajime can’t look away, can’t move because they’re holding hands and it’s _different_ from all those times they did it as kids, dragging each other and running around _._

Tooru’s grip is soft at first, but it gets tighter as his lip starts wobbling again.

There’s still ice cream on his mouth.

They lie there on the cold floor, heater whirring away and TV static in the background, Tooru crying silently and Hajime offering wordless comfort, until it gets late enough that Tooru has to stay over.

 

 

The next one is in senior high, and it’s also a girl.

Rebecca is the only relationship Tooru has in junior high because he gets hooked on volleyball soon after she leaves, and suddenly, there’s no time for anything but practice practice practice. No time for anything but becoming the _best_.

And in the beginning, Hajime can barely keep up, can feel himself gradually falling behind. But then that thing with Kageyama happens and something finally _clicks_ between Hajime and Tooru, and Hajime’s so damn relieved because now it’s about becoming the best _team_.

So the rest of junior high is spent trying to beat this pretentious-ass school and every damn time they fail, Hajime grinds his teeth, gets back up again and again, Tooru right there with him.

But it still burns when they lose the last match, sweating and panting, Ushijima barely breathing any heavier than a light jog and oh, does it grate on Hajime’s nerves. He’s shouting and cursing in his mind, vowing to beat them and beat them _hard_.

At least Tooru gets the Best Setter award.

Afterwards, Shimura takes them out to eat ramen.

“You’ll get them in senior high,” she says, slurping her noodles.

Hajime watches Tooru try not to cry at that, at the faith and surety of her words, and nods. “Yeah. We will.”

Tooru’s definitely not sniffling from the heat of the ramen now.

Hajime hides a smile behind his chopsticks, but catches Shimura flicking a smirk his way. He doesn’t know why but he scowls, and she only grins wider.

Something flicks across her face, then, and she looks down, expression sobering, pushing at the vegetables in her bowl with her spoon. Hajime feels the heaviness in his gut grow.

“I’m not going to Aoba Johsai, though, so you’ll have to let me know about your matches, since I won’t be there to see them.” She says, forced casualness in her voice.

Hajime blinks and beside him, Tooru’s noodles fall out of his mouth. “You’re—?”

“Yokohama. Mom’s got a job offer.” Shimura reaches over and nudges Tooru’s mouth closed.

“Oh.” Hajime swallows, unbalanced.

“Wha—but, Micchan, who will suffer with me under Hajime’s cruel, unyielding rule? He’s going to mother me until I _die_ from it.” Oikawa jabs his chopsticks in Hajime’s direction, and just like that, the weirdness in the air dissipates.

Shimura shoots back, eyebrows raised, “Why do you think I’m leaving? It was nice knowing you, _Oikawa-sama_.”

The day ends in noodles being flung and yelling chefs, but the loss of the match recedes to the back of their minds.

In April, Tooru and Hajime enter Aoba Johsai, their gakuran uniforms exchanged for blazers and ties, blue swapped for teal. Shimura moves away and in her place comes Matsukawa Issei and Hanamaki Takahiro.

They’re not as loud as Shimura, but just as full of deadpan snark as her and when all they do in the face of Tooru’s general _weirdness_ is just squish his cheeks and coo, Hajime feels the four of them fall in together like they’ve known each other all along.

It’s not a surprise when they become the best first years on the volleyball team.

What _is_ a shock, though, is that, with that status comes admiring glances and interested classmates. Hajime himself gets a couple of guys coming over at lunch to ask about his spikes and he ends up telling them about the training regime he’s trying out. And there’s a few girls he knows from junior high who drop by with a nice word or two.

But it’s _nothing_ compared to the hoard that slowly but surely builds up around Tooru in their first year.

It starts with people from Kitagawa Daiichi, with their teasing remarks about how Tooru’s finally grown into his skills, and then it’s bright, shiny-eyed girls, with their sweater paws and “Tooru-kun’s” and suddenly it’s like the awkward, nerdy kid from Kitagawa Daiichi is gone. Buried under amazing tosses, under limbs that no longer look gangly but _slim_ in dress pants, and messy hair now coined ‘wavy’.

What the heck is _wavy_?

It’s like Hajime is the only one that remembers the Tooru that cried as loud as the rest of the junior high volleyball team when they lost, the Tooru who had snot streaming from his nose. The Tooru with the shitty personality—shitty enough that he could still issue out a setter vs setter challenge to thirteen-year-old Kageyama _while holding the Best Setter award._

It’s jarring.

The only consolation Hajime gets is that Tooru looks just as bewildered as him, flushing and sputtering under Hanamaki’s playful pokes and Matsukawa’s sly smile.

But through all these changes, Hajime-and-Tooru remain constant.

Like clockwork, they’re at Hajime’s house every day after practice, studying or throwing a volleyball around. Still living out of each other’s pockets, fighting over food, pushing each other into the mud and laughing.

They still call each other’s parents “Auntie” and “Uncle” and don’t pay attention to how it sounds more and more like “Mom” and “Dad” with each day that passes.

Don’t pay attention to the looks Matsukawa and Hanamaki send them sometimes, when the four of them are joking around and Tooru gets clingy and whiny, flopping all over Hajime with his octopus arms. Don’t see the fond, indulgent smiles that flit across their teachers’ faces, or hear the whispers of “How adorable.”

First year in senior high and they’ve yet to grow out of being Hajime-and-Tooru.

 

 

So it’s something of a shock when one day, Tooru shows up to school with a beaming Ito Chiharu holding onto his arm.

_Oh, right. Dating is a thing._ Hajime chews on his pork and rice, cataloguing the faces Hanamaki makes behind Tooru’s back, mocking his embellished story of how Ito confessed to him. Hajime’s half-tempted to just whip out his phone and record it.

How does he make his face twist like tha—ooookay, that’s disgusting.

“Hanamaki, you are disgusting,” Matsukawa says.

Tooru whips around, tie swinging and Hajime shoots out a hand and catches it before it can land in Tooru’s noodles. “Makki, are you making fun of me???”

Hanamaki freezes, two fingers up one nostril and a hand halfway into his mouth. “…Nnnwwoo.”

“Unbelievable. None of you are listening to me!” Tooru flops backwards over his chair, a hand to his forehead.

“She confessed to you because when she came to support us at the Spring Tournament Prelims, she thought you were so cool, and you accepted because you’re vain and now you two are dating,” Hajime says, and yanks at the tie in his hand, jerking Tooru up in his seat so a classmate can walk by. Tooru coughs, a confused little noise.

Shoving another piece of meat in his mouth, Hajime flicks the tie over Tooru’s shoulder. “Eat your noodles and for God’s sake, don’t drop your tie in the bowl.”

Tooru huffs, cheeks oddly red, but picks up his chopsticks obediently.

“Okay, _that_.” Hanamaki points a finger at the two of them, expression unreadable. “That, right there. What is that.”

Hajime blinks. What?

Without looking up from his notes, Matsukawa slaps at Hanamaki’s hand. “You’re being rude.” To Hajime, he says, “What the idiot means to say is that, since we met, you and Oikawa have acted like you’ve been married the moment you came out of your mothers’ wombs.”

“I would rather fling my grandmother off a cliff than marry Tooru.” Hajime says instantly. Hanamaki chokes on his spit and crumples to the floor. Hajime: 23, Hanamaki: -8.

Tooru slams his chopsticks on the desk. “Wha-Hajime!”

Hajime doesn’t look over at him, because he knows there’ll be the puppy eyes and the exaggerated frown and the scrunched up nose and he really doesn’t need to see that. It makes his stomach ache.

Matsukawa just flips another page of his notebook and scribbles something down. “That’s kind of excessive. He can’t be that bad.”

There’s soup splatter on Tooru’s cheek, so Hajime grabs a napkin and smacks it on his face, rubbing harder when Tooru whines and tries to turn away. “No. No, you don’t understand—one time he went through a break-up and ate all my ice cream but only the vanilla and strawberry parts—”

“Oh my GOD, are you _still_ not over that??”

“There was only chocolate left, Tooru, I had to eat all of it. ALL of it, with no break for some strawberry or vanilla—”

“It was a rough time for me, okay??”

“Do you know why they make Neapolitan ice cream the way they do, Tooru? Do you?”

“Hajime, just shut up—”

“It’s so you can taste three flavours at once and then you don’t get bored of it, Tooru. That’s why. And guess what I was when I only had choCOLATE TO EAT THAT DA—”

Hanamaki stares unabashedly from the floor, “I’ll never get tired of this. It’s like watching a cat and a dog fight.”

“Alright, alright, you two, break it up,” Matsukawa snaps his notebook shut, whapping them on their heads with it. He points to the doorway. “We’ve got a visitor.”

The rest of them turn to see Ito hovering just outside the class, holding a light blue bag. She goes bright red when they lock eyes on her and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s clear she doesn’t know where to look, and having the full attention of her…boyfriend and his friends seems to unnerve her. But Hajime watches as she takes a deep breath and raises her head to meet Tooru’s gaze, imploring and demanding, all at once. Like she wants something but knows that she shouldn’t have to ask for it.

 _She’s cool._ Hajime muses. _How’d Tooru get someone like her?_

“Ooh, look at that face, you should get going, lover boy.” Matsukawa reaches across the desk and nudges Tooru in the shoulder. His fingers are long, knuckles prominent under the skin, and Hajime thinks, _lazy_ , when he sees them. They look nothing like Hajime’s own thick-skinned ones, or Tooru’s soft, reliable setter hands.

“I-Yeah.” Hajime glances up at Tooru through his lashes. He’s got that dumb, sloppy smile and the twinkly eye thing going on. Ew. “I’ll see you guys later?”

Tooru leaves without waiting to hear their response. Hajime watches him go; feeling irrationally annoyed with the way he practically skips to the door.

“Ah, puppy love.” Hanamaki leans back in his chair, balancing precariously on the back legs. “I think I can see his tail wagging.”

“How long do you think until he gets to kiss her?” Matsukawa asks idly.

“Ehh, a week.”

“You have too much faith in our bumbling boy, Hiro.”

A flick of a wrist and a piece of fried shrimp flies into the air. Hanamaki leans back and catches it in his mouth. Show off. “Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be _Ito_ who gets a kiss out of Tooru. She’s way more forward than him.”

“Hmm, I guess so.” Matsukawa cocks his head, peering over at Hajime. “What do you think? You’re the resident Oikawa expert.”

Hajime shrugs, wipes his mouth with a tissue. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

His friends exchange a fleeting look and for some goddamn reason it ticks him off and he clears his throat, stamping down on the irritation buzzing in his chest.

“Do either of you know how to solve polynomial functions?”

 

 

Hajime pushes the door open and steps into the store. Above his head, the bell rings out and the cashier glances up with a smile. Hajime gives a wave and heads to the section where they keep the chips.

He adjusts his earbuds and hums quietly along to the song, grabbing a basket and filling it with three bags of chips, a couple of granola bars, a carton of juice, and some apples.

He places his stuff on the conveyor and fishes out his wallet, watching the prices as the cashier scans the items.

Through the clear glass walls of the store, the sun emerges from behind the clouds and filters through to land warm on Hajime’s back.

Something flashes at the edge of his vision, glaring and sudden, and he winces, turning to see what it was.

Hanging by the register are various candies, lighters, and charms. One charm in particular is what Hajime guesses shone bright enough to almost blind him, considering it’s coloured a solid bright magenta.

“Yeeaahh, I don’t know why we have that,” the cashier drawls when he notices Hajime staring at it. “It’s an angler fish, if you couldn’t see past the ugly-ass pink of it.”

“Is—is that a bell hanging where the glowing—” Hajime brings his hand up to his forehead and wiggles it around— “thing is supposed to be?”

“Yup.” The cashier bags the last of his stuff. “Is that everything?”

Hajime pauses, still oddly mesmerized by the ugliness of the thing. Why would anyone make a charm out of an _angler fish_. Who thought of that. Who looked at one of the weirdest organisms in the oceans and thought, _I want to hang a small pink version of it on my bag._

And his mind goes, _Tooru_.

He grabs one of the damn charms and hands it to the cashier.

 

 

The next day, Hajime says to Tooru, “You should probably stop calling me that.”

Tooru looks up, the tail end of his sentence trailing off. He’d been talking about Ito again. For the seventh time in the past hour. “What?”

“You know.” Hajime dribbles the soccer ball, fixated on the pattern of black and white bouncing between his feet. “My name. You should stop.”

It’s P.E. and although it’s late October, it’s still warm enough that half the class is outside. The boys are doing soccer, warming up and practicing passes with their friends at various spots on the field, the occasional stray ball rolling around. The girls are inside the gym setting up the volleyball nets.

Hajime sighs. _He_ wants to play volleyball.

Tooru stands up from his lunge, and the spot where his hands were braced on his thigh flush pink, the blood rushing back. Hajime dribbles the ball faster.

“You…want me to stop using your name?” Hajime would say Tooru looks hilariously bewildered except, oddly enough, Hajime isn’t in the mood to find things funny at the moment. “Are you getting it changed or—?”

“No, of course not. But. You know. You’ve got a girlfriend now.” The ball bounces off his toe awkwardly, and Hajime rushes to stop it with his foot before it gets away. It leaves him unstable, wobbling on one foot.

Actually, this whole conversation is leaving him teetering on an edge he can’t see.

“A girlfriend.” Tooru parrots.

“Yeah.”

“So I should stop—I don’t get it? Does me having a girlfriend somehow make you nameless?” Tooru kicks at the ground, a sure sign he’s frustrated.

“No, I mean, like—Hajime. You shouldn’t call me Hajime anymore.” The ball comes to a halt under Hajime’s left foot, and it’s quiet.

Everyone else is still playing, of course, still letting out noises of effort and scuffing their shoes on the dirt, but the air around him and Tooru seems crystalized, and it’s weird, silence shouldn’t ring in his ears so much that it dampens everything that isn’t his and Tooru’s breathing, but it does.

“You’re going to have to say more than that, Hajime, because I have no idea what’s going on here.” Tooru says flatly.

“Just—” Hajime flounders. “I don’t know, isn’t it weird?”

Tooru just stares at him incredulously and, alright, Hajime doesn’t really get it either, hasn’t let himself think too hard about why this bothers him so damn much, so he doesn’t know where to start, to begin explaining why he can’t bear the sound of his name of Tooru’s lips anymore. Just hearing it makes him freeze, makes him turn instinctively in the direction of that particular voice, makes his skin itch weirdly and his neck tingle.

How do you tell your best friend you hate the way he says your name?

“It…” Hajime bores holes into the soccer ball, frantically casting around in his head for something, anything, to say. “It sounds too childish. We’re almost sixteen, now, and in our first year at Seijou, not running around in my backyard covered in mud.”

He rolls his foot back over the ball before hooking it under and kicking up, sending it into his hands. He looks up, stares determinedly at the pale scar at the edge of Tooru’s hairline.

“Plus, wouldn’t your girlfriend mind if you’re on a first-name basis with someone other than her?”

 _I know I’d mind,_ Hajime thinks. _I’d mind if he was on a first-name basis with someone els—_

“That isn’t—but she—then what am I supposed to call you?” Tooru asks, and there’s something like panic in his tone but Hajime firmly banishes the thought.

He shrugs, drops the ball back to the ground. “Iwaizumi is fine.”

Tooru splutters, “Iwai—?!” but Hajime’s already kicked the ball across the field, running after it.

 

 

Practice after school is…awkward, to say the least.

Tooru won’t stop staring at him, a perpetually hurt and baffled twist to his features and Hajime won’t stop feeling like that guy who cheated on his wife in that TV show his dad watches. It skews with their rhythm, throws sand in their well-oiled gears and leaves balls dropping to the floor when they should’ve been spiked down. Leaves Tooru glaring at his hands like they’re somebody else’s.

By the end of it, Hajime is frustrated beyond words and everyone else is staring at them like they’re waiting for it all to blow, for the train to derail and crash. It really pisses him off.

It doesn’t help that Tooru has said all but one word to him since practice started and it was an attempt at saying “Iwaizu—” that cut short when Tooru blanched and visibly recoiled. Then he just turned and quickly walked away, gripping the volleyball in his hands so furiously the material squeaked, and Hajime had been left feeling like he’d been turned inside out.

They’re cleaning up the gym when Matsukawa corners Hajime in the back of the storage room, between the baseball equipment and the lifejackets. It’s abrupt and completely blindsides him. He can still hear the rest of the members in the gym, beyond the barely opened doors, a sliver of orange light and freedom that Matsukawa blocks out with his unfair height and build.

His eyebrows are doing that thing they do and Hajime already knows he’s going to hate this.

“Alright.” Matsukawa pokes him on the chest. “What’s up with you and Oikawa?”

“Nothing,” is Hajime’s unthinking, automatic reply.

“Right, and I’m wearing a thong.”

Hajime is horrified to admit that his eyes immediately drop to his friend’s crotch.

Matsukawa slaps a hand to his forehead. “Iwaizumi. I wasn’t actually serious.”

“I—right. I knew that.” Hajime pretends to be fascinated with the spider spinning a truly impressive web in the corner above his head. He crosses and re-crosses his arms, and Matsukawa just stands there, a worried tilt to his mouth.

“Look, I think I’m speaking for everyone when I say you and Oikawa sucked immensely at practice today,” he begins. “I’m not asking you to tell me everything, but me and Hanamaki just want to know if you two’ll be okay.”

“Hanamaki?”

“Yeah, he’s curious too, but we agreed it would probably freak you out if the _both_ of us confronted you.”

Hajime casts a disbelieving look around the dark storage room. “Yeah, this is infinitely more reassuring, I’m so reassured.”

Matsukawa rolls his eyes and leans a hip against the shelf beside him. “You’re going to fix it, right? Whatever it is that you did.”

“What I—? Why would you think it was _me_ that did something?” Hajime splutters.

Matsukawa doesn’t even dignify that with a response, just snorts and fixes him with a _look_ , which is—so offensive, Hajime did not come here to be offended, in fact, he didn’t even want to be here in the first place, what the hell.

“Mattsun?”

They turn to the front of the room, where Tooru stands with netting in his arms, staring at them. Nobody says anything for a second, and then suspicion paints something twisted in Tooru’s eyes and he looks away, walking to the side to drop the nets onto a shelf. Beside him, Matsukawa shifts uncertainly, a miniscule action but the sole of his shoe drags on the dust and it might as well have been a siren in the dark, musty room.

Tooru pauses and Hajime tenses up but he has no idea why. In fact, this entire day has been him fumbling around and getting caught up in something he’s hopelessly lost in trying to classify.

But Tooru just turns back to the door, steps measured and the confusion he wore during practice is gone now, replaced with a carefully indifferent look. “Better hurry up and get changed, Mattsun. Iwa-chan.”

And then it’s just him and Matsukawa, again.

“ _Iwa-chan_?” his friend says lowly. “Are you _sure_ you didn’t do anything? He seemed pissed.”

And Hajime doesn’t say a thing.

Because he has never seen that expression on Tooru’s face before. In all sixteen years since Hajime’s known him, not _once_ has Tooru tried to hide like that. From other people, sure. But never _him._

Hajime’s reeling. He’s stuck on the memory of Tooru’s eyes in the dimness, and the tense slant of his shoulders juxtaposed against the arch of his eyebrows. He’s stuck on the way Tooru’s entire body language screamed “don’t touch me” and it’s like coming home to find all your furniture replaced with their plastic dollhouse equivalents.

It’s always been Hajime-and-Tooru, but now it’s “Iwa-chan” and “don’t touch me.”

 

 

(Rebecca might’ve been Tooru’s first relationship, but it’s Ito who sets off a slow slide of events that sends everything flipping onto its side.)

 

 

Tooru still comes over, but rarely nowadays.

After that thing in the storage room, there’s a hint of uncertainty that lines every interaction they have and Hajime’s not sure if he’s the only one who feels it. Because Tooru’s still smiley and loud, but this voice in Hajime’s head goes ‘ _wrong’_ and it makes him want to punch something.

So, yeah, things are a bit weird.

Hajime guesses that’s why Tooru runs off to spend most of his time with his girlfriend, instead. He doesn’t mind, really, but it’s somewhat of a problem. He doesn’t know what to do with all this free time.

His life has never really been just _his_.

Even with practice and homework, he’s still got so much hours left before he gets into bed and it’s strange. He gets antsy and ends up calling Matsukawa and Hanamaki to hang out more and his grades start going up from all the hours spent reading his notes now that there isn’t a Tooru-shaped weight always flopping itself onto him.

When three weeks pass and Hajime has yet to come home with Tooru, his parents act like someone’s _died_. When he explains that Tooru’s got a girlfriend, they look almost…surprised. Like it was the last thing they expected. There were glances exchanged and Hajime has always admired the way his mom and dad could talk without _actually_ talking but right then, it was just kind of annoying.

“Well…Try to get him over here in the next few days, the milk bread we bought is about to go bad.”

Hajime agrees, but there’s that voice in his head again and it’s whispering, _isn’t that kind of odd, how he’s here often enough that we buy groceries for him_.

So here he is, standing at Tooru’s locker. He feels silly and it pisses him off, and he’s got no idea why he’s pissed and _that_ makes him angrier. He tries not to let it show, though, when Tooru walks through the doors.

“Iwa-chan?” Tooru’s…startled, and his eyes rove over Hajime’s face like he hasn’t seen him in years, and it’s ridiculous but it still warms Hajime cheeks. He forces himself not to look away, staring back evenly, and that’s when he catches sight of the circles under Tooru’s eyes.

He pushes off the lockers and walks forward, already scowling. Tooru backs up, hands rising in the universal sign of surrender. “Iwa-chan, I swear, whatever it is, it wasn’t me—”

“Oikawa—” and wow does that sound weird— “you idiot, are you not getting enough sleep?” Hajime asks, pinching Tooru’s cheek.

“Ow, ow, owww—” Tooru whines. “Iwa-chan, it’s not my faaaault.”

The sight of that familiar pout eases the tightness Hajime didn’t realize he was holding in his chest, and he lets go of Tooru’s cheek, unable to keep from pressing a quick finger into the redness. But it’s Tooru and he catches the action and sends Hajime a questioning look.

“The milk bread Mom and Dad bought is about to go bad and there’s too many to bring to school,” Hajime says, instead of acknowledging Tooru’s stare.

Tooru gets it immediately, and damn if it doesn’t make Hajime’s lip quirk up when Tooru bobs in place. If Hajime had known milk bread would fix this, he would’ve mentioned it earlier.

“After practice, then?” Tooru asks excitedly. “It’s been so long.”

Hajime nods, but he’s just a little confused. Has Tooru not eaten milk bread in a while?

Whatever, Hajime’s just glad things are okay.

 

 

“Sorry for the intrusion!” Tooru says happily.

“No one’s home, idiot, how many times have I told you, you don’t need to say that.” Hajime closes the door and flips the lock.

Tooru’s already flung his shoes and coat off, skidding down the hallway in his bright blue duck socks. Hajime looks up at the ceiling, waits a second, and mouths right along when Tooru yells, “I call Mario!”

Hajime walks into the living room and flops down onto the couch, dropping his bag on the floor in exchange for a controller. “Let me guess. Rainbow road?” he says, already foreseeing death and destruction.

Tooru just cackles.

“You’re a heathen, you know that?”

The countdown starts and they both turn to the screen, fingers poised over buttons. The time for talking is over. Hajime is going to kick Tooru’s _butt_.

They play a couple rounds, homework lying forgotten at their feet as the sun sinks lower over the horizon through the window.

The game gets paused for a snack run at one point and Tooru walks straight to the cupboard where the milk bread is and emerges with an armload of it, tottering on his legs back to the living room, head barely seen over the pile. Hajime side-steps him with the ease of practice and grabs two glasses, filling one with orange juice and the other with chocolate milk. He takes a bag of chips for himself.

“So, uh, how’s it going with Ito?” Hajime places the drinks and chips on the coffee table with the frankly horrendous amount of bread—why did his parents buy so _much_ —and settles back into the couch.

“Fine,” is Tooru’s curt reply.

And Hajime must be imagining it but Tooru looks a bit…annoyed? But he can’t be, he was okay just a second ago. What could possibly have gone wrong in a second?

“Uh, that’s good.” Hajime pops open the bag of chips and props it against his leg. “Hanamaki told me you guys went to that new amusement park last week?”

Bringing the park up makes his mouth tighten, but it’s not like he and Tooru had made plans to go when they heard of its grand opening last summer or anything. It’s not.

Tooru just shrugs.

“…Was it fun—?”

Tooru puts down his bread and says, “Could we just, I don’t know, not talk about her right now?”

“Oh. Y-yeah. Yeah, of course. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

Hajime wiggles his toes and looks away, feeling incredibly out of place. He slips his hands in the pocket of his hoodie and almost jumps out of his seat when they bump against something small.

Oh right, the charm. He wraps a hand around it, unreasonably aware of its weight.

The couch dips slightly, and Hajime feels more than hears Tooru sigh.

“It’s just. We’re supposed to be hanging out—” _Oh. Hajime, you idiot, it was never about the milk bread_ — “It’s been so long since it was just us. I don’t want to talk about other people or homework or whatever. I want—” Tooru breaks off, picking up the controller and fidgeting with it.

“What’s wrong?” Hajime asks, because when it comes down to it, Hajime still knows when something’s off with his best friend, even when he’s not sure _what_.

Tooru stares down at the controller. “I miss you. I guess.”

“Oh,” Hajime breathes.

Tooru sinks back so far into his seat that Hajime’s surprised he doesn’t fall right between the couch cushions. “Nevermind. It’s stupid—”

“Hey.” Tooru glances over, and Hajime’s reminded of the little rabbit he saw on school field trip once. Wary but curious, with it’s wide, round eyes and brown colouring, it had been the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

 _I think I just called Tooru_ cute _, what the heck—_

Ignoring the warmth in his cheeks, Hajime takes his fist out of his pockets and offers it to Tooru, who stares at it suspiciously. His eyes flick back and forth between it and Hajime’s face, reaching out slowly and bumping it with his own fist.

Hajime sighs. “No, you idiot.” And before Tooru can take offense at that, he takes Tooru’s hand, turning it palm facing upwards and smooths it open, unconsciously taking in the colour contrast of their skin.

He opens his fist and the charm makes a tiny chime as it falls into Tooru’s waiting palm.

Tooru gapes down at the fluorescent pink angler fish, then at Hajime, and back again. He flicks lightly at the bell, and it rings gently. He closes his mouth and does something funny with his eyebrows, a puzzled little exhale leaving him.

Hajime flushes harder and scratches sheepishly at his neck. “I saw it at the corner store when I went to get chips, and I thought it was something you’d like.” He casts a slanted look at the thing. “It’s weird enough to fit right in with your alien figurines, after all.”

“I-Iwa-chan.” Tooru peers up at him with round, glassy eyes. “It’s so ugly.”

Hajime feels a vein throb in his temple and he goes to take it back. “Well, if you don’t _want_ it—”

“No!” Tooru snatches his hand away and presses it to his collarbone, hunched protectively over it like it’s his kid. He unfurls his fingers and looks down at the charm, smiling wobbly. “No, I-you’re right. I do like it.”

“Good,” Hajime huffs, looking away from the happiness so embarrassingly obvious on Tooru’s face. He fiddles absently with the pillow in his lap, fluffing it up and then squishing it flat. It’s incredibly soft, worn down with use and the years past, colours faded and rubbed white in some spots.

He looks over at Tooru and then back down. Picks up the controller. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, and gives up, opting instead to pick up the other controller where it fell from Tooru’s lap and throwing it at him. Tooru’s still fixated on the fish and yelps when it lands on his thigh.

Hajime doesn’t wait for him and presses play immediately, letting a pleased grin stretch across his face when Tooru groans about proper game etiquette while, on screen, Mario falls right off the road.

Tooru never gets around to finishing the milk bread still taking up precious space in Hajime’s kitchen cabinet but that’s okay, because he promises to come over again for them.

 

 

“Oh thank God,” is how Hanamaki greets them the next morning. He mimes wiping sweat off his face and slumps down in Hajime’s chair with dramatic relief. “You guys are back to normal. I know I made fun about you two being the same person in different bodies but this is so much better than the weird passive-aggressive thing that was going on.”

“I don’t understand you,” Hajime says, and kicks Hanamaki out of his chair. Hajime: 50, Hanamaki: -19.

“Geniuses are of another world,” Hanamaki proclaims and it’d be a cool line if he wasn’t face down on the floor. Tooru just steps over him to get to his seat, purposefully ignoring the pleas for help. Matsukawa is left to pick up the Hanamaki-shaped pieces.

“Speaking of geniuses, a certain bonehead is about to compete in the Spring High Tournament,” Tooru says offhandedly. Hajime knows that tone. He hates that that tone; it rarely means anything good.

“Is this about the thing you guys have against Ushijima?” Matsukawa asks, cradling a limp Hanamaki in his arms. He’s stroking Hanamaki’s cheek. Is that really necessary.

“Next year, we’ll beat them at prelims and be the ones to go to Spring High,” Tooru says, instead of answering the question and the easy air between them vanishes.

Hajime feels the vertebrae of his spine straighten and lock, a primal reaction to the raw _force_ of Tooru’s words and his hard-edged stare. Even Matsukawa and Hanamaki look a little disconcerted.

Hajime forcefully relaxes his shoulders, reminds himself not to get caught up in Tooru’s aura, and whaps the back of Tooru’s head with a steady hand. “Of course we will. But that doesn’t mean you can go off and practice ‘til you drop again, Crappykawa.” He snorts.

“Crap—Iwa-chan, what kind of name is that?” Tooru whines petulantly and rubs at his head, throwing Hajime an affronted pout. From the corner of his eye, Matsukawa and Hanamaki quietly release their breaths, sending uncertain glances at Tooru.

Hajime doesn’t begrudge them for it. Tooru tends to have that effect on people.

“It fits you,” Hajime states.

“Fits m—are you guys just going to sit there while he attacks me like this?!” Tooru whips around to glare at their friends, who share a grin before saying in unison, “Yeah.”

The teacher walks in just as Tooru lunges across the desk at all three of them, screeching, sending everything to the floor in a truly mighty crash.

 

 

A few weeks later, Tooru walks up to Hajime during clean-up and he’s got this expression on his face that makes the voice in Hajime’s head go  _oh no_.

And since Hajime’s a walking, talking Tooru-translator, he takes one look and knows right away it has something to do with the news that Shiratorizawa had made it to semi-finals before they lost.

But what comes out of Tooru’s mouth isn’t “Ushijima this, Shiratorizawa that,” but “Chiharu-chan broke up with me.”

Hajime’s grip on the broom slackens.

“Oh.”

The word _finally_ pops up in his mind and Hajime scowls, confused and feeling weirdly guilty.

Tooru swings the trashcan in his hands, face blank. “She said I wasn’t paying attention to her. Spent too much time on volleyball.”

Hajime thinks back to a few nights ago, when he had to physically sling Tooru on his back and lug him home at 9pm because the dumbass _did_ indeed practice until he dropped. The next morning practice, Hajime had to let his captain know what happens when you give an over-eager Oikawa Tooru the keys to the gym.

“She doesn’t get it though,” Tooru says distantly, looking out over the field. “Shiratorizawa’s just going to get stronger, and if we’re going to beat them then I need to get better.”

Ah. There we go. Hajime knew his gut instinct was right. On one hand, Hajime’s glad the message of a _team_ victory still resonates within his friend’s thick skull, but on the other, the idiot is still insisting on carrying the burden by himself.

“You didn’t try to explain it to her?” Hajime asks. He’ll address the damn hero complex later, at home.

“I did,” Tooru blows irritably at his fringe. “She still wouldn’t budge. It was either her or volleyball.”

Hajime hums. “Well, it’s kind of understandable that she’d want your relationship to be priority number one.”

“Then that’s good for her, she knows what she wants.” Tooru aims a skeptical look at him. “But do you really expect me to give up volleyball for someone I only got together with four months ago?”

Hajime quirks a smile because of course not, and it’s apparently enough for Tooru because the unsettling look slides off his face, replaced by a bright grin and warm chocolate-brown eyes.

Hajime’s heart trips and again, the voice in his head goes, _oh no._

 

 

After Ito Chiharu is another girl, but number three only lasts the two months of summer in second year. Hajime spends those entire two months feverishly practicing his spikes and receives until the heat makes him drop. If he lets himself rest too long, the voice starts saying stuff again and Hajime’s not ready to hear it yet.

They don’t hang out. Hajime only sees Tooru during practice. He tried inviting Tooru to do things but always got a “sorry, can’t,” in return.

He stopped asking after a while because every time Tooru said no, every time he said, I can’t or I’ve got a date with my girlfriend and I already went to that restaurant or did that thing or watched that movie, maybe next time Iwa-chan—well.

By the end of August, Tooru’s single again; his volleyball drive proving to be too much of a strain on things.

 

 

“Iwa-chan, come here!” Tooru’s irritating voice rises above the din of the squeaking sneakers and volleyballs bounced off floors. Hajime sets his water bottle on the bench and jogs over.

“What’s up?” he asks, slicking his hair back, sweat inching down his neck. Summer is doing him no favours and deep, deep, _deep_ down, Hajime just wants practice to be over already. There’s an AC and orange-flavoured popsicles calling his name at home. He drags the bottom of his shirt up and wipes his forehead with it, feeling the warm, sticky air breeze past his bare stomach.

“I—uh. Serve,” Tooru says, voice thick with something. He better not be getting sick. “The serve I’ve been practicing. I think I’ve finally got it down.”

Hajime straightens, anticipation sliding up his spine and he jerks his head towards the court. “Go on then.”

Tooru nods and backs up, a few paces away from the back line. He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, bringing the ball up to his forehead. And when those eyes finally slide open, Hajime hears blood rush through his ears and his knees almost give out.

_Holy shit._

Tooru tosses the ball into a calculated, graceful arc and takes three quick steps forward, jumps—higher than Hajime remembers, pulls his arm back and hits the ball as it comes down. He sends it flying, and it lands—crashes like a meteorite, really, onto the other side of the net and the sound, holy shit—the sheer _power_ of it resonates through the gym like a gunshot.

Outside, a flock of crows caw out, flapping their wings.

Players pause in their own practice, even the third years, and their awe physically manifests in the thundering silence left behind even after the ball has bounced around and come to a stop at Matsukawa’s feet.

Hajime exhales raggedly, thunder-struck and feeling like he’s just witnessed the splitting of mountains and the fall of a nation.

He turns back to Tooru to find him already staring back, brown eyes sharp and waiting. Hajime reads them, takes the message in them and smirks, a small little quirk of his lips that’s filled with ferocity, because _yes._

_Yes, we can use this._

Shiratorizawa better watch their backs.

 

 

“Hajime!” Tooru’s grandmother cries out, catching Hajime in a hug the moment he walks through the door. “Oh, how you’ve grown, look at you! Tall and—are these muscles? Girls must be _swooning_.”

Hajime flushes. “Obaa-san, no—why would, no.”

Obaa-san smiles, gap-toothed and delighted, “And still as adorable as I remember, too!”

There’s a muffled laugh behind him and Tooru walks up to his shoulder, a hand covering the lower half of his face. He looks down at Hajime, eyes twinkling, and Hajime is once again reminded of how much he hates Tooru’s sudden growth spurt.

“Yup, our cute, prickly little Iwa-chan,” Tooru chokes out, “So endearing. Like a cactus.”

“I will end you,” Hajime says seriously, guiding Obaa-san to the couch.

“Thank you, Hajime, you’re so sweet.” She pats his head, and Tooru shakes violently at the side, arms crossed and head turned away.

Obaa-san beckons Tooru with a hand. “And you, my lovely grandson, come here. Let me look at you.”

“As you wish, Baa-chan,” Tooru says, disgustingly charming as usual. As he walks past Hajime, he wiggles his eyebrows and blows him an exaggerated kiss. As gross as it is, Hajime’s lips twitch.

Obaa-san gives Tooru the same scrutinizing once-over, squishing his cheeks and patting his stomach, rubbing at the skin of his hands and tapping the bones of his ankles. Tooru bears it all with grace and a fond smile. He’s always been gentle with his grandmother.

“Good,” she says finally. “You two are happy, yes? Volleyball and various teenage boy business? Harmless fun and the such—oh, and how are those two other ones, Hair and Eyes, you should bring them over more often, Tooru, they made me laugh so much last time.”

Hajime bites down on his lip and stares hard out the window. _Hair and Eyes._ Tooru lets out an indistinct noise and coughs once.

“Hair—um, Makki and Mattsun are. Doing great, they’re. Absolutely good, yes,” he says, and the veins on his neck strain with the effort of trying not to laugh. Hajime has to look away, or else he might burst into giggles.

Obaa-san’s eyes do that same twinkling thing Tooru’s does, and he knows right away they’re not fooling her. “Tooru, be a dear and grab the snacks in the cupboard for me, would you? You know where it is.”

“Of course,” Tooru says, and heads to the kitchen. Hajime watches him go.

When he turns back, he finds Obaa-san smiling widely, knowingly. And, don’t get him wrong, he loves Tooru’s grandmother, she babysat him for a good chunk of his pre-school years, but that smile looks too close to Tooru’s to mean any good. He inches back into his seat.

“You and Tooru are starting your third year soon, I hear.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh. Exciting, I guess,” he says hesitantly. “Oikawa’s gonna be team captain.”

Obaa-san nods, completely unsurprised. Everyone they told had been the same, and it lights something in Hajime’s chest that absolutely does not resemble pride.

“And vice-captain for you, of course,” she says.

Everyone else has assumed that too.

Hajime nods, rubs his hands on his slacks. What’s taking Tooru so long?

“Hajime,” Obaa-san begins slowly, “have I ever told you about that time you went to the hospital for a stomach virus and Tooru tried to run away?” There's that sly smile again.

“No,” Hajime says, leaning forward, suddenly no longer nervous but very, very interested. “No, you have not.”

“You were both seven, and I was babysitting for your parents while they went on their—double date, they called it. You ate something bad at school and the sickness kicked in an hour after I took you home.”

Hajime nods along. He remembers it faintly. Don’t eat sandwiches with green 'sprinkles' on them, he learned that day.

“Ambulances only let one person come with and I couldn’t leave Tooru at home or send you off on your own, so I called your parents and they hurried home to get you to the hospital. They wouldn’t let Tooru go, though, didn’t want him to catch what you got. So.” And here Obaa-san leans in, voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone. “You were at the hospital. I’d just gotten off the phone with your father. And it was too quiet in the house. I knew it was already too late when I turned around and Tooru was nowhere to be seen.”

Hajime frowns and Obaa-san nods. They both know the kind of uneasiness and foreboding you feel when you can’t find Oikawa Tooru.

“I looked everywhere. Couldn’t find him, the sneaky child.” She shakes her head, smiling wryly. “Almost worried me to an early death.”

“So what happened?” Hajime scoots to the edge of the cushion. “Did you find him stuck in a toilet somewhere?”

“No, that stopped happening after you found him and laughed at him for twenty minutes.”

“Oh, right.”

There’s a clang in the kitchen and the two of them pause, listening to Tooru curse quietly and try to fix whatever he did, ultimately only causing more of a mess, judging by the noise.

Obaa-san shakes her head. “Kaeda-san saw him running down the street. Apparently, waiting until tomorrow to visit you was too long, so he’d gotten the idea to take the bus by himself.”

Hajime’s eyes widen, and he gives an aborted laugh. “The bus? Did he even know how?”

Obaa-san cackles, “No, of course not! He didn’t even know how much the fare was—just grabbed my bag and ran out the door. He asked the first person he saw to point him to hospital and luckily, they stalled long enough for Kaeda-san to call me. He tried running away when I showed up. You should’ve seen it, Hajime, a seven-year-old in power rangers pajamas, no shoes, and carrying a bright red ladies’ purse the size of his torso, running down the street like his life depended on it.”

That’s it. Hajime’s done, he’s gone. The image is too much—he’s spent his whole life with this guy, of course he can see _in exact detail_ what Obaa-san is describing.

“A-a man,” he wheezes, “on a m-mission.” There are tears in his eyes.

When Tooru comes back carrying a tray of snacks and drinks, it’s to his grandmother and his best friend crumpled in their seats, drowning in mirth.

He stops. Stares. “What.”

They calm down, take one look at him and burst into laughter again.

Tooru narrows his eyes. “You guys were talking about me, weren’t you.”

“N-not at all, Oikawa, what are you talking about,” Hajime says through clenched teeth. Tooru just sniffs and places the tray on the table, dropping onto the couch beside Hajime, making sure to elbow him at least twice trying to settle in. Hajime just grins, still stuck on what he’s just learned to be bothered.

“I’m telling Mattsun you bullied me again,” Tooru says. “He always takes my side.”

“No, he doesn’t. Just yesterday he stuffed his juice box down your shirt when you told him he couldn’t leave the class until he agreed to lend you the new issue of Shounen Jump. You had to wear your dirty practice clothes for the rest of the day and your fanclub wouldn’t go near you.”

“You know, Iwa-chan, sometimes I wonder how much I’d have to pay to hire a hitman to kill someone,” Tooru says, chewing threateningly on his cookie and Hajime wants to die because the idiot looks like a damn  _horse_ when he does that.

“Let me know when you find out,” Hajime smirks. “Could use one on a guy I know.”

Tooru’s chin juts out and a muscle twitches in his jaw. “Yeah?”

Hajime stares down his nose at Tooru, trying so hard not to laugh in his face. “Yeah.”

“Not that this isn’t one of my most favourite things to see, but I do hope this isn’t the only reason you came to visit me for.” Obaa-san calls out, amused.

They both jerk in their seats, startled, ears going red. They exchange a glance, laughing uneasily. How could they have forgotten…?

Obaa-san just smiles secretly at them from behind her cup of tea.

 

 

Later, when they have to get home before the buses stop running, Obaa-san stops Hajime just as he’s about to step through the door with a feather-light touch. Hajime waves Tooru on, and gives her his full attention, reading the sincerity in lines around her mouth.

She pats a motherly hand on his arm, and breaths in deep. Hajime waits.

“I’m glad you two came to visit me. You both look very happy, and it’s all I could ask for.” She looks up, smooths Hajime’s hair back from his forehead. Her thin, soft fingers shake slightly. “And as always, I’m glad Tooru has someone like you in his life.”

Hajime swallows past the pressure in his throat and leans forward to press a kiss to her head. When he turns around, Tooru is waiting under the lone streetlight in this quiet neighbourhood, hands in his pockets and face tilted to the stars.

 

 

“Am I a bad boyfriend,” Tooru asks half-heartedly, as he and Hajime watch Tooru’s fourth girlfriend stomp away. _Ex-_ girlfriend now, he supposes. Tooru rubs gingerly at the red hand-print on his cheek and sighs.

Hajime snorts out an actual, amused laugh. “Is the sky blue? Is the Earth round? Is there dirt under our feet? Is water wet? Do you cry every time we watch Star Wars? Do you forget to take in the laundry when it rains? Is my name Iwaizumi Hajime? Do you have matching alien-print socks, underwear, and pajama set? Do you wear them five out of seven days? Did you pick your boogers so hard that one time that you gave yourself a nosebleed for two solid hours—”

“Alright, alright, I get it, oh my _God!_ And that was one time, Iwa-chan! One-freaking-time and you’ve never let me live it down!” Tooru shouts, stomping his feet. He actually stomps his feet like a sulky five-year-old, that is fucking hilarious. Hajime clutches at his stomach.

“I think it’s pretty clear with your track record—minus Rebecca—that you are an absolutely _terrible_ boyfriend,” Hajime says, wiping at his eyes.

“You’re supposed to be comforting me after my traumatic breakup, you know, you’re an awful best friend.” Tooru crosses his arms and sticks out his lower lip.

The rush of affection that sweeps through Hajime’s body at that expression is routine after all these years, and he pays it no mind, sliding a hand into Tooru’s silky smooth hair and mussing it up playfully.

“Well then, I’m a perfect fit for a shitty guy like you, huh?”

He regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth, wants a sinkhole to open up underneath him, for a car to run him over, for Bowser to come running and punch him into the sun but none of that happens and now he’s just stuck here with a hand in Tooru’s hair and those stupid, stupid words hanging in the air.

“So mean, Iwa-chaaaan,” is the predictable reply, and Hajime briefly closes his eyes in relief, lets his hand fall back to his side. Classic Tooru.

“ _I’m_ mean? Who was it that gave such an emphatic yes when asked by their girlfriend if volleyball meant more to them than said girlfriend?” Hajime says over his shoulder, walking back inside the gym.

“Well, I mean, it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” Tooru grumbles, following after him with his hands shoved in his practice shorts. “We didn’t get to where we are by slacking off. Of course volleyball is important. _Especially_ to team captain. I don’t know what she was expecting.”

Hajime snatches a stray volleyball out of the air, sends it back to Kindaichi. “For you to be as perfect as your crappy, fake-ass public persona suggests?”

Across the court, Hanamaki waves them over vigorously.

“What are you trying to say, Iwa-chan, I _am_ perfect.” Tooru actually flips his hair, the bastard. Hajime slaps the back of Tooru’s head without missing a beat.

“You are a violent little man, Iwa-chan, I hope you know.”

“Do not call me a little man.”

“Oh, but violent is okay?”

“It’s an unfortunate side-effect of being around you too long. I heard it’s incurable.”

“You’re not funny, gorilla-man. _Gorilla-chan_.”

“I _will_ kick your ass.”

“Could you guys stop being gross for one minute and come practice combos with your two best friends?” Hanamaki says with an unnecessary amount of suffering.

Abruptly, Tooru turns to him and says, “Hey, let me teach you my jump serve.”

Hanamaki actually does a double-take at that and Matsukawa shares a bewildered look with Hajime.

“I—okay?” Hanamaki says, and Hajime might or might not take pleasure in the rare occurrence of a stunned and confused Hanamaki. Serves him right for all those damn pranks. “Just, uh, what brought this on?”

Tooru gestures for Hanamaki to follow him, picking up a ball from a cart as he walks to the back line of the court. “Nothing much.”

 _Nothing much, my ass,_ Hajime thinks.

“But I heard Karasuno was invited to a summer training camp with some Tokyo schools.”

_Fucking knew it._

“Why am I not surprised you know about that, as creepy as it sounds,” Matsukawa chuckles. He throws a ball up, receives it and sends it Hajime’s way. Hajime bounces it back, and they continue the basic passes on the side while Tooru demonstrates his jump serve to Hanamaki.

“My fanclub is wide and far-reaching, Mattsun, there isn’t anything they don’t know and aren’t willing to share with their lovely Oikawa-san.” Cue peace sign.

“Gross,” all three of them say at the exact same time, not a single stutter in their actions.

Tooru looks stunned for all of one second before he puts his hand on his hips and splutters, “Do you guys practice that or something?!”

“Well _Oikawa-san_ , you give us so many opportunities, how could we _not_ be synchronized by now.” Hanamaki flutters his lashes.

“Makki, do you want to my help or not, you slut,” Tooru hisses, finger pointed right between Hanamaki’s eyes.

“Mmmnope, that’d be you Oikawa,” Hajime says. “You’re the token slut.”

On the other court, Yahaba fumbles with his set and coughs violently, and the combined laughter of Watari, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki drown out Tooru’s anguished wails.

 

 

And then university comes and with it, Tooru’s fifth relationship.

…This time is the worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> according to the haikyuu wiki, hanamaki apparently learns how to do jump serves sometime after the season 1 match w karasuno, i just made it so oikawa was the one to teach him
> 
> part 2 coming tmrw, or thurs, depends. editing it lmao
> 
>  
> 
> [talk to me ♡](http://drovuri.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out when i said tmrw i meant an hr after 12am lmao pls enJOY

“—and remember to do your readings over the weekend!”

Hajime and a hundred other students slam their books shut, and chatter rises in the lecture theatre as people begin filing out.

He rolls his shoulders and cracks his knuckles, shuffling along the queue to the door. It feels like there are ants under his clothes and he itches to book it out of here. He’s wearing last week’s clothes, and the baseball cap pulled over his greasy hair combined with a day-old stubble and a dead-eyed stare is more than enough to make people step out of his way. It’s his last class of the week and he is beyond done.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses the first number in his call log. It rings twice and then connects.

_“Iwa-chan! Have you been freed?”_

The phone’s tinny speakers don’t do Tooru’s voice justice but Hajime feels a fond smile cross over his face anyways, and the tightness in his neck abates.

“Yeah, thank God,” he groans, and Tooru laughs. “I’m gonna grab my stuff and head out soon.”

_“Mmmn~ Call me when you get here?”_

“Yeah.” _Does he have to make those noises, what the heck._ “Don’t forget to stock the fridge with real food.”

_“Instant noodles not treating you well over there?”_

Hajime grimaces. “I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime. I need actual cooked meals.”

_“Does that mean you’ll cook for me, Iwa-chan?”_

And curse him, but Hajime can practically see that coy little smile. “I’m not your mom, Crappykawa.”

_“Awww but Iwa-chaaaaan, how could you use my kitchen and not even let me taste some of your delicious cooking?”_

“Easy. I just won’t.”

_“Meanie! And just for that, I’m not giving you your surprise!”_

Hajime perks up, feet slowing down. “Surprise?”

_“Nope! Nuh-uh, you’re not getting it, don’t even try with me!”_

Hajime pauses, pretending to think, when really, he’s just barely holding back the giddy, happy feeling in his chest. His cheeks are stretched wide with a grin as he strolls back to his dorm. “…I’ll cook for you,” he plays along, and a little of the warmness slips into it.

_“Hah, I knew I’d get you. Aren’t I great?”_

“You’re one hundred percent trash,” Hajime says easily, reaching for his key card.

_“Well, you’re childhood friends with this piece of trash!!”_

Jesus fucking Christ, Hajime is going to die laughing. A dorm mate passes by and mouths “Oikawa?” and Hajime nods.

“Alright, alright, don’t get your flamingo boxers in a twist, you baby.” Hajime reaches his door, slides his key in and steps through the threshold, kicking off his shoes. “…You’re at least recyclable trash.”

The last thing Hajime hears is an indignant squawk before the call cuts off angrily.

 

 

Warm, orange-pink light shines softly on the walls and the floor as the sun settles down behind high rise buildings and distant mountains. Two birds chirp sweetly outside the window, fluttering around each other. The food sizzles on the pan, simple fried rice but Hajime’s mouth waters at the prospect of eating something other than microwaveable food. He arrived at Tooru’s apartment an hour ago, using the key Tooru gave him. He immediately took a shower and shaved in a blessedly clean bathroom _not_ shared by two dozen other filthy guys.

Dressed in a loose tee and sweatpants, hair still a little damp, Hajime hums as he divides the rice into two bowls. He drops the pan into the sink and takes out his phone from his pocket.

_[May 5, 7:12 pm] Hajime: fried rice fr dinner when u cming bck_

_[May 5, 7:13 pm] dnt fckn answer: ????you’re there right now??? I thought I told you to text me!!!_

_[May 5, 7:13 pm] Hajime: lol whoops_

_[May 5, 7:13 pm] dnt fckn answer:_ _ヽ_ _(_ _ಠ_ ___ _ಠ_ _)_ _ノ_

_[May 5, 7:13 pm] dnt fckn answer: almost home. 5 mins_

_[May 5, 7:13 pm] dnt fckn answer: don’t eat w.out me!!!!!_

_[May 5, 7:14 pm] Hajime: no prmises loser_

Stuffing his phone back in his pocket, he grabs two spoons and carries the bowls to the tiny coffee table. In fact, this whole place is tiny, Hajime barely needs to take four steps from the stove to get to what was essentially the living room, though it doubled as a bedroom; there's a futon rolled up in the corner by the desk. He walks back to the fridge to try and find some drinks and sees nothing but a half-empty carton of chocolate milk.

Dammit, Tooru.

He sighs, grabs it and starts filling up two glasses. The door clacks open as he’s putting the carton back, and there’s a second of rapid thumping before Tooru’s flopped all over his back, singing “I’m home~”

Hajime’s about to welcome him back but then the bastard sticks his cold, cold hands under Hajime’s armpits.

“Jesus fuckin—Shittykawa, you are so fucking shitty, get off!”

There’s a lot of violent slapping and twisting, grunts and giggles, and when the dust settles, Tooru is lying flat on the tatami mats. Hajime steps around him with the glasses, glaring, because Tooru is sneaky fucker and would absolutely trip him just to send everything flying, damn the mess. Tooru just makes gross kissy faces at him.

“Come eat your food before it gets cold,” Hajime scolds. He feels like there should be an apron around his waist and a wooden spoon in his hand. It’s a weird and awful image, so he kicks Tooru in the shin when he crawls over.

“Ow! Why?!”

“I’m annoyed for some reason.”

“Get out of my house,” Tooru says flatly.

“Thanks for the food,” Hajime replies and digs in.

 

 

The table’s pushed to the side, dishes dumped in the sink for later because they’re both lazy assholes, and a low-quality version of Moana plays on Tooru’s laptop. They’re on their stomachs on the futon, squished together and skin sticky with sweat from an unusually warm spring night. Hajime should be doing the homework he brought in his duffel bag, but he’s wonderfully full of food, sluggish and sated and anything beyond breathing or keeping his eyes open seems out of his physical capacity.

“This is awful, I can’t even see what’s going on, what is that? Is that her grandmother or a pineapple?” Tooru grunts, words muffled into his palm.

“Of course that’s her grandmother, why would a pineapple be imparting wisdom to a teenager on a boat in the middle of the ocean,” Hajime mumbles into the curve of Tooru’s bare shoulder. His eyelids droop, lashes brushing against Tooru’s skin and Tooru shivers, goosebumps rising.

“Why did I let you talk me into this, it’s ruined for me now, the magic of Disney and singing crabs is lost through the size of these fucking pixels.” Tooru slumps down, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow.

Hajime pokes at his side, eliciting a growl. “Pay attention, Moana’s singing.”

“So?”

“Singing means something important is happening,” Hajime insists sleepily.

Tooru raises his head, mouth open as if to say something and stops. He stares at Hajime, strangely. Like they just met. Hajime just blinks back, slow and comfortable. He lets the corner of his mouth tilt up.

“…You’re ridiculous,” Tooru whispers, and knocks his temple into Hajime’s.

Hajime blows a loud and wet raspberry onto the skin under his lips and Tooru lets out the highest, most terrified shriek Hajime’s heard all year. He rolls onto his back, away from Hajime, and Hajime falls with him, onto his chest. Tooru scrubs furiously at the drool on his shoulder with Hajime’s sleeve and whines petulantly into Hajime’s hair.

Hajime falls asleep laughing, with Moana singing in the background and Tooru’s complaints in his ear.

 

 

“..wa-chan. Iwa-chan, wake up. C’mon, you sleepy bear, it’s already eleven.”

Hajime groans, low and raspy with sleep, “Tooru, _please_.”

The shaking abruptly ceases and there’s a period of silence. Hajime starts falling back to sleep, lulled by the warmth under the covers and snuggling deeper into the pillow in his arms.

And then some sick fucker bites his neck.

Hajime shoots upright, snarling and completely disoriented. He looks around, searching for the culprit and only finds Tooru laughing his ass off beside him, a finger pointed at Hajime.

“Oh my God, Iwa-chan, that is the best thing I’ve seen all week oh my God—”

“Oikawa.”

“—should’ve taken a video, Makki would’ve loved it—”

“Oikawa Tooru.”

“—play it at my funeral—”

“Oikawa fucking Tooru, did you fucking _bite_ me?” Hajime growls, hand clapped over his neck.

“Well, you wouldn’t wake up and I needed to pee!” Tooru protests, staring up at him with big, brown eyes. “You were wrapped all over me, crushed my lungs, you poop-head!”

“Who the fuck says poop-head, Assikawa, are you seven,” Hajime scrubs a hand over his face, biting down on the smile.

“Out of five, yeah,” comes the cheeky reply.

Hajime snaps. He goes for the ribs, fingers merciless.

“I—Iwaaaa-ch—ah! No! Nooooo Iwa-cha—nnnhh mm’gonna pee!!!” He howls, head tossing side to side, hands pushing futilely at Hajime’s fingers. His shirt rides up his stomach and as he flails, the waistband of his pajama bottoms drag down. He laughs, wheezy and panting, and Hajime has to. Stop. Because he’s. Tired. Or something, whatever.

Tooru lies defeated, curled up on his side as Hajime shakes the sleepiness from his head, blinking back after-images of Tooru's bare skin in the morning sunlight. He leans back on his hands, lazily gazing around.

The curtains weren’t closed all the way last night, and a slice of sunlight streaks its way through the room, right down the length of the futon. It shimmers in Tooru’s hair, casts a glow on his lashes and his lips, and sinks warm and heavy onto Hajime’s thigh, the one Tooru’s got a hand on, absently rubbing slow circles onto it as he regains his breath. Dust floats around, passing through the ray of light and then disappearing. The apartment is still, fridge running quietly and the laptop is pushed a little bit away from the head of the futon, half-closed in their rush to sleep. Hajime’s duffel lies next to Tooru’s rack of clothes, blending right in.

He closes his eyes to it all, trying to breath steadily through his nose.

“Hey.” Tooru sounds impossibly soft.

There’s a rustling, and Hajime feels Tooru lean past him, reaching for something near the rack. His hair brushes Hajime’s chin, his hand is braced on Hajime’s shoulder. A finger taps his cheek and he opens his eyes halfway.

Tooru sits a few inches from him, and Hajime realizes their legs are still tangled together. In his hands lies a box wrapped in green paper.

“Happy Birthday.”

Hajime leans forward, freeing up his hands to take the gift, and it brings him just that much closer to Tooru, who doesn’t move away.

“I know it’s a month early, but. We won’t be getting another long weekend in a while and if I waited ‘til the next time I saw you, it’d be July already,” Tooru says quietly, brushing his hair out of his eyes. There’s something almost _shy_ about it.

But this is Tooru. Shy isn’t something Hajime would associate with Tooru.

“Thanks,” he says, sincere, feeling like the usual insult would fit all wrong in a situation like this. But Tooru’s given him presents before. Hajime doesn’t know what makes this time any different. It could very well be another prank gift that pukes glitter everywhere or a pair of kids’ underwear.

“Open it,” Tooru urges, bobbing in place, excited now.

Hajime does, oddly careful with the wrapping, partly because he’s still feeling… _weird_ , and partly to watch Tooru squirm. The paper falls away and the lid of the box is lifted and Hajime stares down at sea-blue photo album. He takes it out, fingers sweeping over the smooth cover of it, and flips it open to the first sleeve.

There’s a picture of them already in it, the first picture of them, actually. They’re cradled in the arms of Tooru’s mom, who sits tired and glowing in a hospital bed. They’re holding hands across her chest.

Dated July 20th, the day Tooru was born, the story was that Tooru hadn’t stopped crying until Hajime’s parents stopped by and introduced Hajime to him, to which the little brat had finally fallen silent.

 _“I wish we’d caught it on tape, Hajime, it was the cutest thing,”_ his dad said. _“Damn near teared up a little, watching Tooru reach for you the moment he laid eyes on your frowny eyebrows.”_

_“Dad, he was just born, he couldn’t possibly have been able to see—”_

_“The two of you, like little steamed red bean buns—”_

Hajime turns the page, and it’s one of them ten months later, hands braced together between them, identical expressions of determination on their faces as they both struggle to get on their feet, using each other as support.

He flips through them all, running his fingers over some, huffing a small laugh at others. Halfway into the album, Tooru leans his head on Hajime’s shoulders and Hajime barely notices, too caught up in junior high memories to register the hand that comes up around his neck, dragging over the bite mark in his skin.

When he gets to the last picture—the one they took right before university started, lying in Tooru’s bed and Hajime’s got Tooru in a chokehold, the both of them making ridiculous faces—he pauses, because there are some empty sleeves left. And he knows it’s not that Tooru ran out of pictures because his mom keeps boxes full of them at home.

“For later, the ones that didn’t happen yet,” Tooru explains into the crook of Hajime’s neck. He taps a finger on the album. “There’s three more of the same set, in case you were worried about space.”

Hajime shakes his head. Closes the album and just. Holds it in his hands, thumbs tracing over the pattern of diamonds on the cover. Three more?

“You can be such a little shit sometimes, you know?” he says.

Tooru’s head shoots up, an offended noise starting low in his throat but Hajime speaks over it.

“But you make up for it, I guess, with this.” He turns his head slightly to smile.

Tooru’s mouth makes a small clack as it snaps shut and the flush that blooms across his cheeks puts the sunlight in the window to shame. They’re so close, noses barely an inch away, and the distance feels delicious to Hajime in a way he can feel himself getting addicted to. Can feel himself getting used to.

So he allows himself half a second before he pulls away.

He stands and Tooru falls on his side with a yell, limbs wind-milling. He looks like an overturned turtle.

“Haji—?”

“I’ll make us some breakfast,” Hajime says loudly, too loudly. It rings in the apartment, resonating all weirdly with the moment they just had but shit. Shit, Hajime doesn’t want to know what would happen if he hadn’t moved away. “Go brush your teeth, you stink.”

“O…okay,” Tooru says, and gets to his feet, rubbing at his arm. It’s telling that he doesn’t correct Hajime and tease him about it being more like lunch, with how late they slept in.

They won’t meet each other eyes, and the awkwardness only fades when they leave to meet up with Bokuto and Kuroo for a volleyball match.

 

 

“Hello, this is the Chofu Aerospace Center, how may I help you?”

Hajime twirls a pen around his fingers. “Hi, my name is Iwaizumi Hajime, I was wondering if I could take a buddy of mine to try out your space shuttle simulator for his birthday? I heard you guys do that.”

“Yes, we do offer the simulator for use. Would you like a tour of the facility, too?” the woman asks politely.

“Sure, that’d be great. Are there any available dates in July?”

There’s a click of a mouse and tapping of some keys and the woman says brightly, “There’s an opening on July thirty-first at 4pm. Would that be acceptable?”

A little late but it’ll do. Hajime’s confident Tooru doesn’t have summer practices that day. He tips his head back against his chair, squinting up at the library ceiling. “That’s great, we’ll take that day.”

“Wonderful.” The keyboard clacks again. “I’ll just get your email address so a confirmation email can be sent.”

Hajime recites it for her, but in his head, he’s already conjuring up the very face Tooru is bound to make when he finds out what Hajime got him. And when he realizes Hajime wins the title of the _best present ever_.

 

 

“Iwaizumi!”

Hajime stops, trying to place where exactly he’s heard that voice, even as he turns.

His jaw drops.

“Shimura?”

She’s barely recognizable with her short pastel pink hair, dressed in a simple white tee and dark navy jeans, a jacket slung over one shoulder and a messenger bag over the other.

“What—your hair!”

“Huh? Oh.” A hand reaches up to finger at a strand nervously. “I got it dyed? And cut?”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Hajime says, still taking it in.

Shimura rolls her eyes, but visibly relaxes. “Still as sarcastic as always, I see.”

He walks forward and raises his fist, grinning. “Don’t act like you weren’t just as bad.”

“I was an angel,” she says, straight-faced, and bumps his fist with hers.

He snorts. “Where’re you headed?”

“Dinner. Delicious donburi down the street,” she says, and they start walking. “Where’s Oikawa?”

Hajime shoots her look. There was something about that question that settled thick in his ears. “Tokyo, on a sports scholarship. Volleyball, as you might’ve guessed, still as obnoxious and awful and petty and loud as you remember,” he says at length, and there’s an unspoken apology in there, for the lack of contact over the last year.

“Good.” Shimura smiles and he knows she gets it.

They’ve entered the shop, a busy, warm little place, and the waiter points them to a table in the back. They squeeze past the other patrons, conversation paused. Hajime sits down, turning to sling his bag on the back of his chair and when he turns back around, Shimura is waving at the waiter, signaling for their food and he guesses she’s a regular, because the waiter just smiles and disappears behind the kitchen doors.

“What have you been up to?” he asks, and Shimura lights up, excitedly filling him in on her life. Architecture, she says, is so fucking hard and she loves it. She got lucky and scored herself an internship this year. It helps that her mom is already in the industry.

Hajime listens, honestly glad to see an old friend doing well. He can’t help but think about how Tooru would’ve burst into tears the moment he saw Shimura, their staunch supporter in the volleyball stands. She was so embarrassing, he remembers, shouting louder than anyone there and decked out in full cheering gear. There was a time they scored five consecutive points off Shiratorizawa and she got both feet on the railing and screamed “suck it!” just as the teachers hauled her off before she could fall.

Tooru soaked up her enthusiasm like red bull. Hajime almost feels his palms sweating again; drove him nuts trying to keep them from creating trouble he couldn’t get them out of.

There’s an uncertain pause and then she says, tentatively, “So…you’re here in Yokohama and…not next to Oikawa, pulling on his ear and nagging.”

Her chin rests in her hand, head tilted towards the side and scanning over the shop. It’s an undemanding posture and Hajime blinks once, twice, when he realizes she’s giving him an out, acting like the statement was just idle filler.

Why would she…?

In his head, the voice goes, _oh no._

Quietly, like the first trickle of water through a dam, Hajime says, “Shimura?”

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I was just curious, I’d thought it’d be good by now,” she says quickly, tapping a finger on the table. “Let’s talk about school, or something. How’s your mom?”

“She’s great?” Hajime answers, a little helplessly. What is this, they’re in a restaurant, why is it so weird all of a sudden. What about architecture? “What do you mean?”

The clink of cups and bowls, the sizzling food in the back and the loud conversations up front rise and ebb around them. They’re surrounded by faded cream walls on one side and bustling waiters on the other, and in front of him, Shimura leans back in her seat, fixing him with a familiar look.

It’s the same one Matsukawa and Hanamaki give him sometimes. Like the one Mom and Dad exchange over his head, like his teachers and his clubmates, the same look he’s seen over the years and yet he could never fucking figure out what it meant.

“You and Oikawa,” she says. “You and Oikawa, just—Hajime-and-Tooru and nothing else.”

The food arrives, steaming and smelling absolutely delicious. Hajime mechanically says his thanks and picks up his chopsticks, watching Shimura do the same, her eyes averted.

They eat.

 _She_ eats, Hajime tries to.

“The first time I met you two, I was twelve and new to the neighbourhood—you remember.” She glances up at him, and he’d say she almost looked worried. “I was looking for friends, and the moment I saw you two I thought ‘not them.’”

“Oh,” Hajime says, and chews his food. It tastes good, but he can’t swallow. He doesn’t even know what she ordered for them and he doesn’t look down to check. His eyes haven’t moved from the spot above Shimura’s head since they started this conversation.

“I don’t mean it like that.” She lets out a small breath. “It’s just…you guys…were obviously the best of friends. I thought it best not to consider even saying hi, like it would feel like I’d gone and defaced a temple with a Sharpie. I barely had to even _think_ about it—like it was just a foregone conclusion, and all those other kids milling around apparently thought the same because no one even tried to get close.”

Hajime raises his cup of tea to his mouth. Drinks. The liquid does little to force the food down.

“And I still thought that. Even after we became friends. All three years of junior high and in between the shit we got up to, I felt like I was watching two planets circle each other, felt like I was just a witness for something and Iwai—Iwaizumi, do you get what I’m saying?” Shimura asks, a little desperately, rice stuck to her chin.

Rice stuck t—

 

_—o her chin, she shows him her phone and_

_“You guys aren’t listeniiiiiingggg,” Tooru whines—_

_“—the first to get a girlfriend.” Shimura says, picking at a scab on her arm._

_Hajime blinks. “Oh. Right.” He hadn’t realized—_

_hadn’t realized, he blinks_

_and Shimura gives him a strange, strange look—_

_—Tooru cries and Hajime hides a smile behind his chopsticks_

_Shimura flicks a smirk his way. He doesn’t know why_

_he doesn’t know why_

_but he scowls, and she_

_only grins wider—_

_“—Daaad?? Can Tooru sleep over again??”_

_“Hajime, it’s been four days, aren’t you tired of each other?”_

_“No! Why’d’ja say that, Tooru gonna cry now, Daaad—”_

_“—since we met, you and Oikawa have acted like you’ve been married—”_

_— comes home without Tooru and his parents act like someone’s died_

_he’s standing at Tooru’s locker. He feels silly and it pisses him off_

_like he’s waiting for his crush—_

_“—Oh! Iwaizumi-kun, where’s Oikawa?” his Japanese teacher asks_

_and she glances to his side_

_like there should be something_

_someone_

_there—_

 

_—Tooru’s mouth at his neck and his fingers on Hajime’s thigh, saying “Three more”_

_“For later”_

_“The ones that haven’t happened yet”_

_“Happy Birthday—”_

_“—perfect fit for a shitty guy like you, huh?”_

_“Do you get what I’m saying?” Shimura asks._

 

 

“Fuck,” Hajime says, right as a waiter trips and splashes soup all over him.

 

 

_[May 15, 9:05 pm] Shimura: We should do that again lol_

_[May 15, 9:05 pm] Hajime: fck off_

_[May 15, 9:05 pm] Shimura: Lol_

_[May 15, 9:06 pm] Shimura: Are you okay though_

_[May 15, 9:06 pm] Shimura: You were really shocked_

_[May 15, 9:06 pm] Shimura: I didn’t think you’d be that shocked like I thought you knew_

_[May 15, 9:06 pm] Hajime: no i fckn didnt how was I sppsd to knw_

_[May 15, 9:06 pm] Shimura: …Well I don’t know Iwaizumi maybe because they’re your own feelings_

_[May 15, 9:07 pm] Hajime: dnt call them tht_

_[May 15, 9:07 pm] Shimura: Feelings??_

_[May 15, 9:07 pm] Shimura: You’re a child_

_[May 15, 9:08 pm] Hajime: & an idiot apparntly_

_[May 15, 9:08 pm] Shimura: Are you going to tell him_

_[May 15, 9:11 pm] Shimura: Iwaizumi?_

Hajime lets his screen go black and slumps down until his head hits the chair, the soft fabric of his hoodie sliding up his back.

Papers and textbooks lay scattered over the surface of his desk, granola bar wrappers in the trash and crumbs sprinkled in his lap. His laptop displays a problem set that he’s been stuck on for an hour now, only a third of it done. Through the window, the sun has finally set, and the rich purples give way to black. Clouds streak across the sky, like someone had covered their fingers in oil pastels and dragged them over the night. Down in the breezeway, stragglers make their way to the dorms, backs bent and rubbing at their eyes. Hajime watches them, chin resting on his chest and arms hanging limply over the armrests, swiveling side to side.

_A loud slap, pages of a book clapped shut and thrown on the covers._

_“Iwa-chan, you know I can’t concentrate when you do that. The chair squeaks.”_

_Hajime rolls his head to the side, squints over at Tooru stretched out on Hajime’s bed. His hair is all mussed and there are pillow marks on his cheek. His face is tipped up towards Hajime, and at this angle, his jaw looks just a bit sharper and his lashes longer._ _Hajime vows never to tell him that because what would follow would be a million requests to take his selfies for him._

_“You weren’t even studying, Oikawa, don’t play.” Hajime mumbles, lids heavy. It’s late, he should get the futon out if Tooru’s staying._

_Tooru keeps the charade up for another second, flicking pointedly at the book’s pages, and then sighs, falling back onto the bed, tucking his fingers back into the sleeves of Hajime’s hoodie._

_“What time is it?” he asks softly._

_“Late,” Hajime replies._

_“Mmn…” Tooru yawns and flaps a hand at Hajime. “Come to bed.”_

_“Futon?”_

_Tooru just sends him a look and then breaks into another yawn. “_ Bed, _Iwa-chan.” He looks…adorably rumpled, huddled under the covers and fingers peeking out of the sleeves, wiggling demandingly. He doesn’t even have his eyes open anymore._

 _Hajime blinks_ and is left staring at an empty bed, covers folded and sheets straightened.

A clang down in the courtyard; racoons in the trash, again. Hajime sits up, the creaking of the chair filling in the silence.

He turns his phone on, unlocks it.

_[9:18 pm] Hajime: i’ll thnk abt it_

 

 

When he wakes up, it’s Saturday and there are screams and ominous thuds coming from outside his door. He rolls over and hopes it isn’t Daisuke from 207 setting the dryer on fire again. The RA chewed all of them out last time. He’s out of luck, though, judging from the increase in noises and frantic footsteps.

Sure enough, not a second later the door shakes under thunderous knocks and a desperate voice calls out, “Iwaizumi-san, I’m so sorry but please wake up! We need your help!”

Hajime growls low and annoyed but throws the covers off and grabs his phone and keys, slipping on his sneakers by the door. He doesn’t bother with a shirt; it’d just get dirty if this is what he thinks it’s about.

Throwing open the door, he scrubs at his face and says, “I’m not the RA, you know, you should really call him instead.”

The person—Serizawa, if Hajime remembers correctly—rubs restlessly at his wrists. “We did call him. He’s there right now, but he told us to go get you.”

Hajime shoots a quick, exasperated look at the ceiling and steps out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. “Right. He is kind of useless.”

Serizawa laughs uncertainly, jumping in place when Hajime gestures for him to lead the way.

“Daisuke-san broke the washer, this time,” Serizawa says unprompted, like he’s reporting to a superior, and Iwaizumi tries not to feel like he’s listening to Kindaichi; this guy’s the same age as Hajime, after all. “Betting pool went to his best friend, who predicted it with unerring accuracy. He’s denying all accusations that they staged it with the excuse that being his friend for all his life gave him this one perk in exchange for all the shit he puts up with. Apparently _he_ used to do Daisuke’s laundry. And dishes. And cooking. And cleaning. And—”

“Alright, alright, I get the picture,” Hajime laughs. “Sounds more like his mom than his best friend.”

Serizawa makes an agreeing noise and pushes the laundry room door open.

Immediately, Hajime’s feet are assaulted with water and bubbles. His ears register panicked voices all yelling variations of “Daisuke, you fucker, are you kidding me?!” The guy’s best friend is the only one who’s sitting on a dryer laughing his ass off. Everyone is crouched on top of the machines, making vicious arm gestures at the culprit who—Hajime squints—is focused on his own hands like they’re covered in blood and not the soap that’s actually there.

The RA is just standing by the window, staring out of it like he’s regretting everything that led him to this moment.

Hajime claps once, booming and commanding, and everyone shuts up and looks up. Nice. He’s still got the vice-captain effect.

The RA turns to him, slow and grieving, what the fuck, and says, “I called the technicians.”

Hajime raises an eyebrow. “So, what do you need me for?”

The RA turns again, clasping his hands behind his back. Hajime inwardly despairs, he bets the girls’ dorms aren’t nearly as dramatic as this. “I’m running on negative sleep and the beer I had two days ago. I can’t deal with these—” he waves a hand at the crouching people— “things. You’re the only one with his head on straight on this entire damn floor.”

Hajime puts a hand over his mouth. Breathes in deep.  ~~BOI~~

Then he turns to Serizawa. “Get the RA to his room, he’s probably not moving from there because if he does, he’ll drop dead.”

Serizawa nods and crosses the room to grab zombie RA by the elbow. Hajime very carefully does not look at that crazed-eyed stare as they pass by him.

To the rest of the room, he channels all eighteen years of experience dealing with Tooru and says, “Buckets and mops in the cupboard by the door. Grab ‘em and start cleaning from outside in, don’t spread the mess around. No, I don’t care if it’s Daisuke’s goddamn fault,” he adds, when one of them bristles, “you’re all at the scene of the crime, so as far as I’m concerned, every one of you shitheads had a hand in it.

“Get to it.” He frowns, and they all scramble to the floor, slipping around on the wetness. His hands fall from their unconscious position on his hips, and he moves to get supplies too, already thinking of which part of the room to take over.

When about two-thirds of the floor has been mopped clean, his ringtone calls out, muffled in the fabric of his shorts and he leans his mop against a dryer, fishing his phone out.

_dnt fckn answer would like to facetime…_

He glances up and one guy jerks his head at him. “Oikawa, innit?”

Hajime nods, hesitant. He doesn’t even know who this guy is.

He gets a considering nod back and the guy goes back to cleaning. Hajime walks out the room, vaguely confused, as he hits the accept button.

“Iwa-chan, h—what are you doing.” Tooru’s voice goes from annoyingly sweet to a disapproving flatness fast enough to give Hajime whiplash.

Hajime looks at himself through the icon in the corner, eyebrows furrowed. He’s…standing in front of the door, covered in the mess he just cleaned and there’s a bubble on his bare shoulder?

He looks back at Tooru’s pixelated face and brushes his hair back, puzzled. “I was helping clean up the laundry room; some idiot broke the washer.”

From behind the closed door, Daisuke yells, “Fuck you, Iwaizumi!”

Hajime rolls his eyes.

Surprisingly, Tooru tenses up further the moment Daisuke’s voice reaches him. “That’s all you’re doing? Cleaning? With him?”

Hajime scratches at the back of his neck, still confused as fuck. What’s happening here? “Uh, yeah? There’s like six other dudes though, it’s a big mess.”

Tooru narrows his eyes until they barely show up as slits through the screen. “Show me.”

Baffled, Hajime blinks rapidly and obligingly flips the camera and opens the door, panning from wall to wall. A couple of the guys give a wave and in the corner, one of them sticks his upper body into a dryer. Hajime retreats back into the hallway.

“Don’t tell me you called just to ask me what I’m doing,” Hajime says once he’s turned the camera.

Tooru looks much more relaxed now, the weirdo, and arches an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what people use facetime for, Iwa-chan?”

“Yeah, but not you. Facetime is for when you want something and think puppy-eyes will help you get it more than fifty emoji-laden texts will,” Hajime says, deadpan.

“I would never,” Tooru replies, just as expressionlessly.

“Sure.”

A beat, and then they both grin, breaking the stare-off.

“No, but seriously, Iwa-chan, I just wanted to check in with you,” Tooru says, and his camera shakes as he leans it against something, settling back in his futon, on his stomach and propped up on his arms.

Hajime makes a quiet noise in his throat, faint memories of the time he spent in that exact futon playing in his mind, and his body aches with it. He breathes out, casting the images away and pulling up the week’s events instead.

“Ah.” He straightens. “You won’t believe who I ran into yesterday.”

“Who?” Tooru tilts his head to the side, cheek smushed against a shoulder. The neck of his shirt falls past it and on closer inspection, Hajime realizes that’s his fucking shirt.

“Shimura.” He grins. “She recognized me, actually. You wouldn’t know it was her with the pink hair and all—”

Tooru holds up a hand, leaning in excitedly. “Wait—Micchan? You saw Micc—she has _pink hair_???”

Hajime nods. “Yup, cut it short too.”

“What!” Tooru slaps his hands repeatedly on the futon, like a baby seal, and Hajime feels warmth bubble in his chest. He knew Tooru would be excited. “Did you get pictures? Iwa-chan, tell me you got pictures.”

“I did; I’m posting it later.”

Tooru flops down onto his arms, and like this, Hajime can clearly see the mess Tooru calls his ‘sexy bedhead.’ The dumbass probably called him first thing after waking up. Hajime’s grin softens.

“You better, I wanna see how pretty Micchan got,” Tooru mumbles into the crook of his arm, still drowsy.

“Really pretty, trust me,” Hajime says, staring at Tooru and the pillow lines on his cheeks.

Tooru stills, and it’s not all that clear through the screen, but that is most definitely a fake smile on his lips where there was previously a genuine expression. Hajime gets figurative whiplash again, looking at it.

“…Oh?” Tooru says, distant. “She must have a boyfriend, then, if she’s _that_ pretty.”

Hajime’s still staring, perplexed, at the downturn in attitude. “No? She didn’t mention one when I asked.”

“You asked if she was single?” Tooru says, and it’s accusing. Hajime’s heartbeat picks up suddenly but his brain fails to see what’s got his instincts all wired up.

“I…guess?” Hajime doesn’t know, he just asked what she’s been up to, but maybe that counts as asking if she was in a relationship?

Tooru stares at him, and Hajime’s built-in translator goes, _incredulous, betrayed, angry._

_Heartbroken._

But Hajime’s conscious mind can’t process the input, lagging behind with the data and it results in him gaping at his phone when Tooru mutters something that sounds like “Unbelievable,” and hangs up.

What?

What the actual fuck?

The door cracks open and Daisuke’s friend pokes his head out. Hajime turns to him, a litany of question marks still floating in his head. The guy looks up at him and goes, “Hey, do you know how to get a 156-pound guy out of a dryer?”

Hajime almost chucks his phone at him. Almost.

 

 

After that disaster of a phone call, Tooru doesn’t respond to calls or texts for weeks.

_[May 18, 2:06 pm] Hajime: shittykawa y rnt u ansring me_

_[May 20, 10:13 am] Hajime: oikawa srsly wtf is up???_

_[May 23, 5:56 pm] Hajime: oikawa what’s going on? are you okay? if you don’t answer i’m coming over there_

_[May 27, 11:39 pm] dnt fckn answer: ehhh you’re not my mom iwa-chaaan_

_[May 27, 11:40 pm] Hajime: fucking finally_

_[May 27, 11:41 pm] Hajime: is something wrong? talk to me_

_[May 27, 11:54 pm] dnt fckn answer: it’s nothing!!! I just got sick that’s all_

_[May 27, 11:54 pm] Hajime: u fckn idiot_

_[May 27, 11:56 pm] Hajime: take bttr care of urself made me worry_

_[May 27, 12:32 pm] dnt fckn answer: ok_

 

 

And then nothing after that.

Wrongly thinking all was fine, Hajime throws himself into his studies for the exams before summer lets out and slowly forgets to pay attention to fact that his phone stops blowing up with texts. Refuses to look too closely to the fact that June 10th passes and not even a simple "happy birthdayyy (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ" shows up.

He dismisses the feeling of _wrong_ with the reasoning that Tooru’s probably gearing up for his own finals, and various volleyball matches. Though it kind of bothers him that he doesn’t know who the matches are against. Tooru’s always made it a point to keep him updated.

And then he gets a call from Hanamaki.

 

 

Hajime’s university isn’t big enough to have a volleyball team, but it’s a sports science-oriented school so there’s enough people who played the sport in senior or even junior high. The games are casual, more of a joint workout than anything competitive but it still leaves Hajime’s volleyball thirst satisfied.

He’s at one such game, between sets, when his phone rings from the bench.

He signals to the guys to give him a minute before they start again, and runs over to scoop the phone up and press it to his ear.

“Hello?” he asks breathlessly.

“Hello~ Hajime-chan, tell your mom what you’ve been up to!” a false falsetto voice demands.

“Fuck you, dude.” Hajime lets his shoulders drop and refuses to acknowledge the disappointment swirling in his gut.

Hanamaki snorts loudly, grossly and Hajime moves the phone away, grimacing. “Oh, I see how it is. Only Issei gets nice treatment from you.”

“Well, he isn’t nearly as bad as you and Crappykawa,” Hajime says, rubbing a finger on the patch of flaking paint on the wall. It falls away under his touch.

“You say that like half of the detentions we got weren’t because of you.”

“They weren’t. Witnesses can attest to that,” Hajime says innocently.

“I’ll get you one day, I swear to god.”

“You’ll die with regrets, then.”

Hanamaki growls. “Don’t fucking place a curse on me, man.”

“What did you really call me for?” Hajime continues chipping away at the paint with a nail.

Hanamaki sighs, but dutifully gets to the point. “Just wondering if you’re coming back home in July for Tooru’s thing.”

“Of course I am.” His finger pauses in it’s slow demolition of the wall. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Hanamaki doesn’t reply immediately, and the phone buzzes quietly with static in Hajime’s ear. And then Hanamaki lets out a steady breath.

“Well…I figured that, what with the whole—new person, thing. That. You wouldn’t feel, uh, up to it. So.”

Hajime’s lost. He moves the phone away to stare at it, like he’ll see the battery popped out or something because he’s not understanding a single thing Hanamaki is saying.

“Are you high?” he whispers into the mic, shooting glances at the guys on the court.

“Wh—no? Why would you ask that?” Hanamaki whispers back.

“Because you make no sense to me right now,” Hajime hisses.

“Oh my god,” Hanamaki says, hollowly. “Oh my god.”

Hajime waits, but Hanamaki is not forthcoming with his words.

“Holy shit,” he says, in a horrified sort of voice only reserved for that one time they watched a dog get brutally murdered in a thriller movie. “You have no idea.”

“What?”

“He didn’t tell you,” Hanamaki continues, sounding far away.

“Who didn’t tell me _what_ ,” Hajime says, annoyed.

“This is going to end so. _Badly._ ” Hanamaki whimpers.

“ _You’re_ gonna end badly if you don’t fucking tell me what you’re babbling about right now,” Hajime threatens.

“Issei told me that you and Oikawa aren’t talking,” Hanamaki says urgently. “That true?”

Hajime frowns. “Uh, I guess? Been busy with exams.”

Hanamaki makes a disbelieving noise. “Right. Like that’s stopped Oikawa from talking your ear off before.”

“Okay, but what has this got to do with going back to Miyagi and the thing I apparently don’t know,” Hajime says, holding up a hand when one of his teammates jerks his head to the court.

“You did this last time, remember?” Hanamaki says, unhelpful and vague like a math teacher trying to explain a test question without giving away the answer.

“I literally have no idea what you’re saying,” Hajime says flatly.

“The time with Ito? You guys were all…weird after Tooru got together with her?” Hanamaki hints. "It's happening again? Maybe, possibly, quite likely?"

Hajime just stays quiet, hoping the lack of an answer sufficiently communicates how fucking confused he is. When the silence stretches out awkwardly, Hanamaki lets out a tortured gurgle and yells explosively, “Oikawa’s got a boyfriend!”

“Hm,” Hajime says.

“‘Hm?!’ That’s it? Just a ‘hm’???” Hanamaki says, dumbfounded. “Are you feeling okay? No, nevermind, that’s a stupid question, don’t answer that.”

“I feel fine,” Hajime says. “Look, I still don’t get how any of this fits together, but I’ll be there for the party. And tell Oikawa congrats for me; idiot is still missing my calls. Hope they actually stay together this time.”

“Wha—you _hope th—?”_ Hanamaki cuts off with a strangled noise.

“Anyways, thanks for calling. Gotta get back to the game, the guys are giving me looks. Talk to you later,” Hajime says, and hangs up.

The late June heat sticks uncomfortably to the sweat on his skin. Hajime bends down, grabs his water bottle, takes three big gulps and dumps the rest of it over his head.

“Iwaizumi, you good?” one guy shouts across the gym, spinning a volleyball in his hand. Everyone is waiting on the court, in position and grinning over their shoulders at him. He exhales slowly, and steps over the white line.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

 

Exams end and Hajime goes back to Miyagi.

Back to his home, where his parents scoop him up into tight hugs and squish his cheeks, bemoaning the loss of his “babyfat.” Where Coach Irihata greets him with a critical once-over and deems him still fit enough to play games with the new Seijou volleyball team.

Back to his neighbourhood with its loud aunties and friendly corner stores. Back to his familiar backyard, with the forest that beckons him from beyond the fence. He looks out at it from the back porch, squatting by the stairs with a juice box in his hand, track pants rolled up to his calves and sleeves bunched around his armpits.

In that corner there, Tooru had stepped on a beetle and screamed so loud the neighbours came running with a rake to fend off a supposed kidnapper.

By the footpath to the gate, Hajime’s dad found them arguing over who would be the one to tell their parents they’d lost their lunchboxes out in the forest again.

A nick on the fence: Tooru had tripped and bashed his head on it and there’d been so much blood Hajime had prematurely declared Tooru dead and started asking what his last wishes were through a stream of tears. It’s pretty funny now, but Hajime still remembers the visceral feeling of loss and fear so well. Tooru was left with a scar right where his hair and forehead meet.

A little further into the copse of trees and Hajime can just make out the slashes on the tree trunks, the ones they had to carve into the bark to find their way home, before they’d gotten comfortable enough with the winding paths and the tricky ways the forest disguised itself.

He sits there, crouched, until darkness settles over the place and paints the trees into something Hajime hadn’t ever been brave enough to venture into without Tooru.

The juice box goes into the recycling, and he steps through the door.

 

“Ah! Seijou’s ace!”

Hajime looks up from his phone and finds Karasuno’s number ten pointing a confident finger at him. Kageyama is there, too, a hand rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I’m not Seijou’s anymore, uh…Hinata, was it?” Hajime says.

“Oh, right, forgot, eheheh.” Hinata rubs sheepishly at his head.

“Iwaizumi-senpai, it’s been a while,” Kageyama says, executing proper social customs for once, Hajime’s surprised to see.

Hajime nods back. “Mm, what are you two up to?”

“We just had a practice match with your—I mean, Seijou,” Kageyama says.

Ah, explains why he bumped into them on the way to Tooru’s party.

“Hey, hey, how’s the volleyball in university?” Hinata jumps in place and Hajime thinks, _it's like the laws of physics don't even apply to him, he's fucking floating._ “It’s even harder, isn’t it? I bet you guys are improving _so much_. Well, just wait ‘til we—”

“ANYWAY,” Kageyama says, which almost makes Hajime burst out laughing. “We’re grateful that we get practice matches every week with one of the strongest schools in the prefecture and we will _not_ ruin that chance like Captain Ennoshita said.” The last part is hissed at his orange-haired companion, who just sticks his tongue out in response.

Hajime stuffs his hands in his pockets, grinning good-naturedly. “Relax, even if you somehow did offend me, it’s not like I have any say in what Coach does. Not like I ever did.”

Kageyama still looks dubious, which just says a whole lot about what he thinks of Hajime. It’s cute, just a little.

Hinata’s been looking between them, eyes flicking rapidly and he gets this look on his face when Kageyama stops paying attention to him. It’s oddly familiar, and Hajime braces himself, instinctively.

Again, the shrimp jumps, situating himself in front of Kageyama a bit. “Quick question! I’m totally not gathering intel like Sneakyshima told me to, but who was that tall blonde guy we saw with the Grand King during practice? Is he a new middle blocker? Are—”

Kageyama whaps Hinata on the head.

“Dumbass Hinata, that was Sado-san.” Hinata makes a confused face. “You know. Sado Kenichi? Oikawa-senpai’s, uh, boyfriend?”

 _He brought him to a_ volleyball practice match? _He’s never done that with any of them ever,_ Hajime thinks. _Also, why do these things always have a way of reaching me when I don't even ask for them._

“Sado, huh?” he says, and hopes he doesn’t sound too bitter.

“Wait, you didn’t know? Aren’t you two at the same school?” Hinata blinks up at him, and the brown of his eyes are just a shade too light to be familiar, but Hajime flinches anyway.

Kageyama jerks forward, grabbing at the back of Hinata’s jersey collar. “Hinata, shut up, I told you this already.”

He shoots a contrite glance at Hajime, and Hajime is tempted to check if the mountains are crumbling because he’s pretty sure _Kageyama_ just read social cues _correctly_.

“No, I’m in Yokohama and he’s in Tokyo,” Hajime says. “We decided we needed to branch out.”

_“—you’re going where?_

_...Okay…if that’s what you want, Iwa-chan.”_

Hinata scrunches up his nose, cupping his chin with a thumb and finger. “Awww, that’s too bad. You guys were so cool together.”

Kageyama tilts his head up to the sky. “Hinata, no—”

And to Hinata, that apparently means “yes” because he just keeps going, completely ignoring the way Kageyama shakes him around by the collar like some misbehaving dog.

“Captain told me and Kageyama—”

“Sawamura-senpai isn’t our captain, anymore—”

“He’s always going to be captain, shut up, _Tobio_ —” Kageyama splutters incoherently, red as a brick— “anyway, Captain told us that every time we fought, we were just wasting time that we could be using to aim for what you and the Grand King had.”

Hinata stares up at him, and there’s a vaguely creepy look in his eyes, now. “He told us, that if there was anyone we should aim to beat, it’d be you two.”

Hajime cocks his head, considering. Kageyama mouths “Hinata, oh my God” to a tree across the street.

“What about all those top five Japan players or something. Shouldn’t you be trying to beat them?” he asks.

At his comment, Kageyama turns to look down at Hinata, and Hinata tilts his chin up to look back at his teammate. And then, as one, they face Hajime, expressions sincere. And also kind of creepy.

“Well, yeah, that’s a given too.” Kageyama says, and Hajime thinks the thing Kageyama _really_ learned from Tooru was the overconfident shittiness. “And sure we’ll get them, but as a team with all the other players, sometime in the future. Like we did with Ushijima-san.”

Hinata picks off where Kageyama stopped, and it’s familiar in a way Hajime can’t place. “But what we’re talking about now is who’s the better duo. You and the Grand King, or us.”

“…The better duo, huh,” Hajime says, numbly.

 

 

Okay, well. Suffice to say that the dinner is fucking awkward.

It’s okay at first. He arrives to find that Tooru and Sado aren’t there yet and it does wonders on his anxiety. He could just pretend to be engrossed in conversation with someone when they come. And apparently, he’s been pretty obvious the past few years, because with unspoken agreement, the seats are arranged so that Hajime is at the farthest end from the two latecomers, situated between Matsukawa and Watari.

Hajime kind of loves his friends.

And indeed, by the time Tooru and Sado walk in, Hajime is too deep in discussion with Watari about Karasuno’s libero to do anything beyond wave a vague hand in their direction and join in on the calls of “happy birthday.”

Watari doesn’t even pause in his sentence, just keeps the conversation going smoothly like a good kouhai.

It still doesn’t stop him from noticing the lovesick smile on Tooru’s face, and how his hands are interlaced with Sado’s. The little green monster sitting on Hajime’s shoulder gleefully tightens its grip on his throat.

“So I’m just sitting there listening to my cousin wax poetic about _another libero’s skills,_ ” Watari bemoans to Hajime, “when _I_ was the one who taught her everything she knows!”

Hajime hums, popping another piece of tofu in his mouth. “Didn’t Nishinoya get the idea to set from the back line from you, too? After that match we had?”

Watari groans, “Ugh, don’t remind me, senpai. I don’t know whether to feel flattered or angry.”

“Go with flattered. Trust me, it’s a much better look,” Hajime says. They both turn to look at Tooru, thinking the same thing.

“I think he doesn’t mind nearly as much, now,” Watari says, and Hajime raises a brow. “Wasn’t much jeering from the sidelines at our match with Karasuno today.”

“Ah.”

Across the table, Tooru’s holding court, a cup of something—that better not be strong liquor—in his hand. Hanamaki, Matsukawa, and Yahaba haven’t stopped talking to him and Sado since they got here, and Hajime just knows it’s because they’re trying to distract Tooru.

But Hajime kind of knows it’s useless anyways. Tooru wouldn’t be the setter he is, if he lacked sharp observational skills.

But it says a lot that he goes along with it, and hasn’t called out ‘Iwa-chaaan’ at all. Or demanded a present from him when everyone else gave one.

Not like he could really give the gift, now.

Yahaba says something, probably a dig at Tooru’s teaching and Tooru reaches over and messes up his kouhai’s hair, laughing, and there’s seaweed in his teeth but _god_ Hajime wants to scream to the world right then and there that _he’s so beautiful._

_He’s so beautiful and he’s not mine._

_He’s so beautiful and why that guy of all people._

_He’s so beautiful and—_

Sado buries his nose in Tooru’s hair and smiles, adoring. Tooru leans into him.

— _he looks happy._

It’s that last one. That last thought that falls from his head and sits heavy on his chest, that forces him to lean back in his seat and breathe. The angry churning in his veins stops. Starts up again, but in reverse, and he blinks. The lines of his surroundings sharpen and slow and now he sees: Sado’s entire body curved around Tooru, accommodating and gentle. The easy give and take between them when Sado moves his arm so Tooru can lean out to stick his tongue at Kunimi. Feeding each other little bits of their food, exchanging smiles and teasing looks. It’s. Different.

In all of Tooru’s relationships, Hajime’s never seen one that looks as easy as this. As happy. So yeah, they’re completely gross with their affection and even Watari looks tired of the giggling but. Tooru’s happy.

And Hajime might be so desperately, achingly _jealous_ and heartbroken, but he’s not an ass.

If they’re…If this is what Tooru wants. Then. Then Hajime is just going to have to grow up and shut up. He’s going to stop thinking about it and start acting like none of this bothers him in the slightest. He’s going to pretend like the best of them. All that time spent watching Tooru do it should count for something, after all.

The world resumes normal speed and sounds filter back into his ears, the smell of his soup wafts into his nose and the heaviness on his chest is still there but now he knows what he has to do.

Matsukawa makes a dirty comment and Hajime obligingly grins, knocking his shoulder into Matsukawa’s with just the perfect amount of roughness and good-natured teasing.

“Is that what you said to Hanamaki last night?” he says, and Hanamaki goes bright red, spluttering. Kyoutani chokes on his octopus and smacks Yahaba until he pushes a drink into Kyoutani’s hand. Matsukawa gets Hajime in a headlock, growling and he laughs, finding it easier to fake than he thought. Kunimi stops staring at him worriedly, though, and Kindaichi finally lets himself look up from the can of coke in his hand, grinning hesitantly. The tension’s gone, blown away by more dirty jokes and Hajime ignores Tooru’s stare in favour of joining in on the teasing.

For the rest of the dinner, no one looks at him twice. It’s a hollow success.

 

 

Hajime hangs out with everyone exactly one more time after that.

It went well, he’d like to think. Sado was a perfectly nice guy, who stuck to and doted on Tooru the entire time. Paid for all his food, the random things he wanted, and was sincerely interested in the things everyone had to say. If Hajime was being honest, he was kind of grateful Sado took up all the attention, replying to any and all the stuff being discussed, eliciting mock-groans whenever he nuzzled Tooru and held his hands and—yeah. Whatever.

It let Hajime fade into the background.

But four days after the dinner, not even a week since school let out, Hajime finds himself throwing his charger and toothbrush back into his bag.

“Going back so soon, son?” a voice says behind him.

He turns, guiltily folding a hoodie in his hands. “Dad.”

Leaning on the doorway, his dad pops a slice of orange in his mouth and chews, eyes sweeping over the made bed and barely used room. They land on his duffel, already zipped shut. He steps through the door and offers Hajime a slice before dumping himself into the desk chair.

“It’s not that I don’t miss you guys,” Hajime says, “I do. I’m glad you guys are doing well, and I want to spend more time here but—”

He bites his lip. Looks down at the hoodie in his hands, there’s a loose thread at the hem and he picks at it.

“It’s alright,” Dad says, and he spins around in the chair. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“I want to, though,” Hajime says quietly. “I want to tell you, because I don’t…I can’t, with my friends, they’re already…”

He sits down on his bed, unfolding the hoodie in his lap and flipping the hem up. His dad passes him another orange slice and Hajime takes it, bites into it and lets the taste of it smooth over his parched throat. Dad finishes the last of the orange and wipes his hands on his pants. “Does this have anything to do with Tooru and his boyfriend?”

Hajime makes an affirmative noise, trying to swallow down the lump of fruit.

“Hm.” Dad scoots forward on the chair until he’s got both feet on the frame of Hajime’s bed, arms braced on his knees. “I’m just going to make some statements; nod if you agree, shake if you don’t. Okay?”

Hajime nods, eyes stinging. His teeth stop grinding, now that he knows he doesn’t have to talk.

“You don’t like Tooru’s boyfriend,” is the first one.

Hajime shakes his head.

Dad’s eyebrows rise slightly, but he continues. “You don’t like Tooru…having a boyfriend.”

Hajime hesitates, then nods.

“You didn’t like Tooru having all those girlfriends, either.”

Nod.

Dad rubs a hand over his chin, and it makes a scratching noise against his stubble. Mom’s always telling him to shave it often because it grows back too fast. Hajime wonders if his will do the same.

“You like Tooru,” Dad says softly, and then corrects himself with a contemplative tilt of his head. “No—love. You love him.”

The relief that flies through Hajime when he nods almost makes his hands shake, but he tightens them in soft blue fabric.

“…You don’t think I’m reading too much into this?” Hajime croaks out. “Or that it’s…weird?”

“Well. I mean, you did spend your entire life with the boy, I think you’d know best.” His dad scratches at an itch in his calf and continues lightly, “And if I did have a problem with it, I had eighteen years to get over it.”

Hajime looks at his dad from the corner of his eye, curious, and Dad grins back at him.

“I suspected it when all it took for Tooru to cry was taking you out of the room, and I knew for sure the day you came home from your first day of kindergarten and declared that you didn’t like anyone there because they called Tooru noisy.”

Hajime groans, red dotting his cheeks. “Dad, seriously?”

His dad just shrugs unrepentantly, chuckling and Hajime turns away, hiding his smile in his palm. From outside his window comes the indistinct chatter of his neighbours, their kids running to the park, and if he listens closely, he can just make out the radio playing J-pop from old man Teuchi’s shop. He really does wish he could stomach staying longer. But everything reminds him of Tooru too much.

A cough interrupts his thoughts and then Dad says, “It’s going to be okay.”

It takes a second but Hajime realizes it’s both his dad trying to offer comfort in that awkward way of his, and a continuation of the thing they were doing. He flexes his toes against the floor, thinking.

The thread in his hoodie unravels when he pulls on it. He knows there aren’t any scissors in his room, so he holds down the thread at the base with one hand and wraps the rest of it around the fingers of his other. It bites into his flesh, blood squeezing out under the pressure and leaving white skin behind. He grips tight and rips his hand away, snapping the thread in half and sending it fluttering to the ground.

He nods.

 

 

His mom is sad to see him go, but a touch of his dad’s hand and she gets that understanding glint in her eyes. Hajime still doesn’t get how they do that. She sends him off with a hurriedly-packed care package and at 5pm Hajime is on his way back to his dorm in Yokohama, watching the horizon blur beyond the train window. It’s nine when he steps out of the station, but there’s still a hint of sunlight in the sky and a mild breeze brushes through his hair, playfully lifting the edges of his clothes.

The university dorm is another forty-five-minute bus ride away, and Hajime spends most of it dozing off intermittently, head lolling against the window and drooling. There’s just something about bus rides that always makes him sleepy. His stop is announced and Hajime gets off, setting his bag by the bench to stretch, yawning. His phone vibrates in his jacket and he takes it out, unlocking it.

_[July 24, 10:12 pm] eyes: heard you left, didn’t even say bye you ass, after all we did for you. Turnip head is going to cry, you know_

_[July 24, 10:12 pm] eyes: okay but serious now. Are you gonna be alright_

Hajime taps a finger on his thigh, tongue smoothing over his teeth.

_[July 24, 10:12 pm] Hajime: srry, had 2 get out, m good tho_

_[July 24, 10:12 pm] Hajime: tell kndchi i’ll tke him n kytni out to eat nxt tme_

_[July 24, 10:14 pm] Hajime: also, could you let everyone know I really appreciated it too by the way, what they did. helped a lot._

_[July 24, 10:15 pm] eyes: no need to thank us, anything for our vice-captain_

_[July 24, 10:15 pm] eyes: keep in touch alright_

_[July 24, 10:16 pm] Hajime: yeah_

He goes to put his phone away, bending down to grab his bag, when it vibrates in his hand. He picks up.

“Matsukawa, wh—”

“Iwa-chan?”

He hasn’t heard that name in two months.

“…Oikawa.”

Tooru clears his throat, and in the background Hajime can make out Hanamaki’s particular brand of loud, and the gunshots of an action movie.

“You didn’t show up to Yahaba’s,” Tooru says, and immediately, Hajime is ticked off. Granted, Tooru probably doesn’t know why he left, but it’s still annoying that he can start complaining to him after two months of radio silence.

“Nope,” Hajime says, popping the ‘p.’

Yeah, he can almost see the tick in Tooru’s neck right now, as he says, sickeningly sweet, “Makki tells me you’re back in Yokohama. What the hell, Iwa-chan? You couldn’t spend another month with your friends?”

“You guys looked perfectly fine,” Hajime says. Apparently, his brain doesn’t give a fuck anymore, alright, alright, okay, cool.  _What the hell is it about Tooru that gets him so_ damn _fired up—_

Tooru scoffs, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I wonder,” Hajime says, and the little rational man in his head wails in despair while the monkey at the wheel cackles.

“Do you have someone waiting for you back there, or something?” Tooru’s ice cold and Hajime actually checks to see if his phone had frosted over. He makes a vague, indecipherable sound and Tooru growls.

“Are you even going to respond like a normal, civil person?!”

Hajime blows a raspberry into the mic, relishing in the way it tests Tooru’s homicidal urges. Serves that idiot right, how does it feel to get a taste of his own irritating attitude?

“ _What_ is _up_ with you, Iwa-chan?!” Tooru asks, exasperated.

And oh, man, Hajime could really fucking go on a rant about how it wasn’t _him_ who didn’t respond to any form of communication at all for the entirety of June and July, he could write an essay on how shitty it made him feel, _he could_ but all that comes out is a quiet: “I’m tired, Oikawa.”

And he is. God, he’s so, so, _so fucking tired_.

Because—here’s the thing: Hajime’s selfish as fuck.

He and Tooru? They shared homes and food and clothes. They threw study materials at each other, raced to see who finished chores first, fought over who beat the other at yearly fitness tests. They knew each other inside and out, held the very essence of each other in their hands and played catch with it, because to them, a relationship like that wasn’t anything special, it was just all they’ve known.

Hajime-and-Tooru.

And because Hajime’s selfish, he wants more. He has that closeness, that trust, and fuck, he wants so much more, he wants it all but he can’t have it. Wants to be able to hold Tooru in his arms for something other than those rare cases where they lost a match or got injured and they both needed it. He just wants to be able to reach past those last few inches _just because he’s allowed to_.

But he’s not. Sado is.

It was almost better when Hajime thought Tooru didn’t like guys. Now—now Hajime knows. He knows it’s not that Tooru doesn’t like guys, it’s that Tooru doesn’t like _Hajime_ that way, and it’s—fine, everyone has their tastes, he can’t blame Tooru for that but.

Knowing that there’s nothing stopping Hajime from being with Tooru except for that fact that _Tooru_ doesn’t want it, is damning.

It’s, hah, it’s—fucking, great, this is great, Hajime—Hajime, fuck, he can’t even think right now. Just—

Sado’s hand around Tooru’s waist, Sado pressing lingering kisses on Tooru’s wrists, the tenderness in their voices when they talk about each other, the looks—the goddamn looks Sado gives Tooru, Hajime sees them on his own face in shop windows and blurry selfies when Tooru’s near. It’s fine, it’s fine it’s _fucking fine_ —

“I’m just busy,” he lies.

“Staying up late, waking early. The usual,” he lies.

“You know how it is,” he lies.

Fuck, what the fuck.

Something crinkles over on Tooru’s side, sudden and sharp. “Iwa-chan, you were just _home,_ it’s _summer break_ —”

“Hey listen, would love to talk but Daisuke broke the washer again,” he lies. A car drives by, loud.

“I’ll call you later,” he lies.

“Bye, Oikawa,” he says.

And he doesn’t let Tooru reply, just jabs his thumb blindly at the red ‘end call’ button on his phone and hears it _beep_. He stares at the screen until it goes black and then stuffs it back in his jacket.

There’s a restlessness bouncing around in his ribcage and he spins around, lost. The campus is dead and its silence frustrates Hajime, he bares his teeth at the way the trees reach down at him with their arching, scraggly branches, a mute and mocking witness to everything.

He scrubs his hands over his head roughly, fingers catching in his hair and he breathes hard, almost panting with something that tastes like anger, like rainstorms and rust, but not quite. Something edging on desperation, salty and stale. His hands fall to his eyes, palms pressing down until his eye socket twinges. What happened, what did they even talk about? Hajime can’t remember past the raw dryness in his throat. He bites his lip. It feels like someone’s stuffed a cantaloupe down his esophagus and he coughs.

The soles of his shoes scrape against the concrete when he squats down—when he unwillingly falls to a crouch, really. He folds in on himself like if he does it hard enough he’ll shrink out of existence.

“You’re okay,” he says, harsh and quick, the words slipping around the cracks in the hand over his mouth. “You’re fine.”

He gives himself one minute.

One minute to close his eyes tight and grind his teeth, one minute to get his fingers to stop shaking, clench them hard enough his bones cry out in protest.

One minute to let his thoughts linger, let his breathing stutter and stabilize.

One minute is all he lets himself have.

And then he stands up, grabs his bag, and goes home.

 

 

“—mething happened?”

“Don’t…but do you think he likes panca…ks?”

“…zawa said so—”

“Why,” Hajime says, throwing his door open, “are you guys failing at whispering in front of my room.”

There are two guys squatting at his feet and one of them lets out an ‘eep!’ while the other just gapes at Hajime like he honestly wasn’t expecting him to wake up through all that hushed yelling. They seem vaguely familiar to Hajime; he thinks they’re in the study group he leads sometimes. Still doesn’t explain what they’re doing.

Hajime gestures for an answer, and they hurriedly leap out of their crouch, thrusting a tray of what looks like slightly burned pancakes and eggs at him before fleeing down the hallway, punching and pushing each other.

“What the fuck,” Hajime says.

“Aw, did the puppies bring you breakfast to cheer you up?”

Hajime turns, finds the RA posing against the wall in a silk robe and fuzzy socks and nothing else. He has no idea what to address first; it’s too early in the morning for any of this, so he squints unsurely at the RA before walking straight back into his room.

His clock says it’s noon and his body is still feeling that delicious drowsiness that comes from sleeping for fourteen hours, muscles lax and warm as he sits down at his desk. Flipping his laptop open, Hajime cuts a piece of the pancake and pops it into his mouth. They taste pretty good, for something two eighteen-year-old boys made, meaning it’s burnt in some places and raw in others. He makes a mental note to thank them later.

He’s got a couple emails, most of them updates on school policy and registration for the next term. He skims over them, munching idly on the eggs and poking at the pieces stuck in his teeth with his tongue. The subject line of one email catches his eyes and he pauses, fork halfway to his mouth.

_Confirmation email: Chofu Aerospace Cen…_

He sits back and crosses his arms, right leg bouncing lightly. The chair squeaks with all the jostling, but he pays it no mind, chewing on his lip as he cocks his head, regarding the email he’d received back in May. He sighs, looking out the window at the summer air rustling through the lush, green trees. The phone call to the Centre seemed like years ago, if he’s being honest, recalling the excitement he felt then. He shakes his head.

Letting out a grunt, he hunches back over his desk and sticks the fork in his mouth, fingers flying over the keys and with a click of the mouse, he sends it off with a satisfied nod. He finishes the last of his pancakes and closes the lid of his laptop. He picks up the plate, licking the fork clean—because burnt food or not, the syrup was _good—_ and slips on his shoes. He grabs his keys, takes a second to tamp down on the lingering clouds in his chest, and steps out into the hallway.

 

 

He spends the day in a sort of lucid denial of anything that happened in the last week, brushing aside his dorm mates’ concerned questions. He finds that raising an eyebrow and pointing at their barely-touched summer homework does the trick of shutting them right up. Though he just ends up walking them through it.

He can’t help it, they just look so…pitiful, staring forlornly at word questions and math formulas.

Right now’s he got Daisuke, Daisuke’s friend, the two that made him breakfast, and…his RA? at the table, books out and pencils scribbling furiously. There’s a ruler in his hand that he thinks the RA handed to him at some point, snickering slightly. Hajime just went with it, the less known, the better, when it comes to that guy.

“Okay, so we good with this one? Can we move on?” he asks, tapping the ruler at the textbook propped up on the whiteboard that he knows for sure was stolen. Scattered agreement around the table, and Hajime flips the page, skimming over the problem while he lets the other guys try it on their own.

The RA isn’t even doing any work, considering he _is_ three years older. Hajime doesn’t even know what he’s doing here, lying upside down on the common room couch, staring at Hajime as his face gets redder by the second from the blood flow.

And then, like the foreboding string quartet in the background of a horror movie, harsh breathing can be heard from the hallway outside the common room, getting louder by the second. Hajime whips back to the table, and frowns when he sees Daisuke still sitting innocently in his seat, chewing on his pencil. He notices Hajime’s stare and immediately raises his arms.

“I haven’t touched any household machinery since that thing with the microwave and the kiwi,” he says.

Hajime just narrows his eyes at him but says nothing, turning to the doorway just in time to see Serizawa run by, skid to stop, arms wind-milling, and then trip into the room. He bumps into the doorframe six times, incredibly enough.

“Iwaizumi-san, Iwaizumi-san, oh my god IWAIZUMI-SAN,” Serizawa yells, and lurches forward to grab Hajime’s wrist like a starving man that was just presented with an entire feast.

Hajime sets the ruler down, nice and slow.

“Is something on fire,” he asks.

“IWAZUMI-SAN,” is the answer he gets, and Serizawa starts hauling him away, which is impressive for a guy of his stature, being significantly shorter and lighter than Hajime.

They leave the common room, but the study group tag along like ducklings, with their bobbing heads and inquisitive noises but Hajime frowns because this is the way to his _room_. They’ve just rounding the corner and Hajime scowls. “Serizawa, I swear to god, if something’s happ—Oikawa?”

And it is, indeed, Oikawa Tooru, standing in front of Hajime’s door, in nothing but a thin t-shirt, pajama pants, and…flip-flops?

Hajime drags his eyes back up to Tooru’s face and very nearly looks around to see if Ushijima is standing behind him, because Tooru’s only ever been _this_ _furious_  when that guy's around. He’s clutching a crumpled piece of paper in his hand and vibrating in place so lividly that Hajime’s surprised he doesn’t feel the air shake from across the hall.

Almost all the surrounding rooms have their doors open and Hajime’s dorm mates peek out from behind them, staring blatantly. One of them has a phone out.

 _Why the fuck are there so many, shouldn’t they be at home, it’s summer break,_ he thinks distractedly, taking uncertain steps until he’s standing in front of Tooru. Behind him, he hears Daisuke whispering worriedly and someone shushes him. He wants to tell them this is not one of their kdramas they binge-watch every Saturday.

“What,” Tooru begins, tightly reigned anger in the flatness of his voice. “Is. _This._ ”

He shakes the paper in Hajime’s face, and Hajime briefly reads ‘Chofu Aerospa—’ on it before Tooru’s really frowny eyebrows are in his face again.

“Uh…your present?” Hajime says, disoriented.

“My present,” Tooru hisses. “To the Chofu Aerospace Center.”

Hajime inches backward. “…Yeeess?”

“The Center that is apparently packed until October.”

“I—yes? I didn’t know they booked that fast—” Hajime babbles.

Tooru clenches his fingers tighter around the paper. “Iwa-chan. This says you get to _try out the_ _Space Shuttle Simulator_.”

“Uh, I’d hope so? I specifically asked for it, because I knew you’d like—”

Tooru inhales sharply, snarling, “Get in the _fucking_ room, _Hajime_.” His eyes are bright and wild, crowding up close to Hajime until they’re chest to chest. The growl in the last syllable of his name—his name that he hasn’t heard in this particular voice in two years, eight months, and twenty-five days—raises just about every single hair on Hajime’s body.

Over Tooru’s shoulder, Yamada’s mouth drops open and Hajime feels naked all of a sudden. He quickly unlocks his door and Tooru barrels past him, barely waiting for Hajime to step through before slamming the door shut. Hajime flicks the lock nervously.

Tooru stares at the unmade bed, the mess of papers on his desk, the coffee cans by the trash. He catches sight of the framed photos on his desk, one of Hajime’s parents, one of the team, and one of just him and Hajime. His mouth goes tight.

“What are you doing here?” Hajime asks warily. “You aren’t even wearing proper clothes—”

“These are for two,” Tooru says.

Hajime’s toes curl. “Yeah.”

“Who.”

He rocks back on his heels. “I thought I wrote it in the email—”

“ _Who,_ Hajime,” Tooru demands, quietly but just as angrily.

Hajime looks past Tooru’s shoulder, out the window at the bright green trees swaying in the gentle wind. “You and Sado—”

“No, it’s not,” Tooru interrupts, and Hajime would make a remark about asking for an answer when you apparently have your own, but somehow, he doesn’t think this is the time for that. He might just get choked to death.

“It was for us, wasn’t it,” Tooru says.

Hajime just continues tracking the flight path of a bird outside, keeping himself grounded watching the loops and dips it makes, his fingers twitching at his sides.

Tooru clicks his tongue, a sharp snap of noise filled with a staggering amount of displeasure, and stalks forward. Hajime’s traitorous feet has him backing up to the door, the view of the window blocked out by Tooru, who looms over him with those last few centimetres in height difference, damn him. He flinches when Tooru smacks the paper onto his chest, tries not to shiver as those slim, pale fingers lay flat and determined over his sternum, heat suffusing through his tank.

“It was for us. _Wasn’t it,_ ” Tooru repeats, glaring down at Hajime with those half-lidded eyes. Hajime grabs Tooru’s wrist and pushes, but it doesn’t move. _Tooru_ doesn’t move, too angry to let up even an inch off of Hajime and fuck him, really, that should not be as hot as it is.

“Why are you so _worked up_ about this?” he says, glaring back. The grey tiredness he’s been feeling since the phone call falls away and in its place comes a familiar irritation.

“I’m _worked up_ ,” Tooru says, “because this is the best fucking present ever, Hajime.”

“O...kay?” Hajime blinks. That wasn’t what he was expecting.

Tooru clicks his tongue again, the annoying bastard, and pushes away from Hajime, walking agitatedly around the room. “You don’t get it—this makes me so damn mad, Hajime, because you got this with the two of us in mind, and it’s the best thing I could ever think of—” Tooru grips the paper with both hands, shaking it at Hajime— “and you wanted me to spend it with _Kenocchi?”_

Hajime throws his hands up. “Oh, well excuuuuse me! I just thought you’d want to spend it with your _boyfriend_ , whom you love, please, forgive me, for jumping to such an _unbelievable_ conclusion, Crappykawa—”

“I _don’t_ love him!” Tooru shouts, slamming his hand into the desk. The photo frames wobble precariously. Hajime’s mouth snaps shut, and he stares, wide-eyed.

Tooru swears. His hands link tight behind his bowed head, fingers pale and shaking. He paces the small room once, twice, and then sits heavily on the bed, hunched over. Hajime remains where he is, still looking straight ahead, stunned into place by those four words. They don’t fit in with the picture of Tooru leaning into Sado at the dinner.

“I don’t,” Tooru whispers at the floor, to the eraser shavings at his feet and the socks lying still, mismatched and dusty. “I don’t. Not—not _him_.”

Hajime breathes, even and quiet. His mind is struck frozen, looping  _"not him, not him"_ over and over.

“Did you know,” Tooru says, “that Kenocchi asked me out. Said he was from the basketball team, and when our teams shared the gym, he always admired how put together I seemed. And I said _yes_ because I was still thinking about that call where you said Micchan was pretty.”

 _When did I say that,_ Hajime thinks. His nails bite into his thighs, even through the sweats.

“So we went out. And half the time I’m trying to keep from snapping at him and it’s shit, Hajime, Kenocchi is so sweet but he treats me like a dainty _fifteen-year-old girl_ , I can’t _stand_ it.” Tooru scrubs his fingers irritably through his hair.

“But I stayed because every time I thought about leaving all I saw was your Instagram selfie with Micchan and you’re right, she’s even prettier than I remember and you two looked like you guys were on a _date_ , Hajime, and that? That, I couldn’t stand even more.”

Tooru lifts his head, and the look on his face—the _look on his face_ —

It’s something that reaches into Hajime’s chest and pulls and yanks at his lungs, stretches them to tangle around his stomach, something that tears his guts into ribbons to choke his heart with. Hajime’s only seen this look exactly twice in his life and he hates it the most. Of all the stupid, smug looks and pouts and smiles and frowns—this is the only expression of Tooru’s that he’d be happy never to witness again.

Tooru inhales, blinking rapidly. “So this?” He gives the paper a little shake before throwing it onto the desk. “This is telling me something, Hajime, and with the call yesterday, with the way you’ve been acting—Hajime, I swear, you better not be fucking with me, you better not, because I just broke up with Kenocchi and I don’t need any more joking around, okay.”

Tooru stares at him, and Hajime stares back.

“I didn’t know,” Hajime hears himself saying, “how to tell you that the reason I wanted you to stop saying my first name was because it sounded too nice and it kept distracting me.”

In the distance, there’s a rumble of a car engine but it barely registers to Hajime. He watches the shape of Tooru’s lips when he mouths “distracting,” like a silent question.

“We fought after that—you remember. Matsukawa cornered me in the storage room.” Hajime waits until Tooru nods and then continues, “He was telling me off for upsetting you, and I remember thinking how ridiculous it all was, like he was your older brother and I was getting the shovel talk.”

Tooru straightens, the tenseness falling away in place of surprise. “ _That’s_ what you guys were talking about?”

Hajime quirks an eyebrow. “What did you think we were talking about?”

Tooru just slaps a hand over his face, mumbling quietly to himself. Hajime lets his lips twitch upwards for half a second before they fall again.

“We went to visit Obaa-san in third year. I think she was trying to give me her…blessings.” Saying it raises warmth to his face again but he keeps going, eyes locked on the windbreaker dangling from his lamp. “In the last two months, I’ve had Hanamaki, Shimura, and my own dad tell me that I’ve been glaringly obvious for as long as they’ve known me. And I’m positive the entire Seijou team knows. I’m pretty sure even _Kageyama and the shrimp_ put the pieces together by themselves.”

Tooru makes a questioning noise and Hajime sighs, finally pushing off the door to sit next to Tooru, thigh-to-thigh. It’s been so long and the feel of Tooru against his side almost derails his thoughts and he wrangles them back with some difficulty.

“That day I came over.” Hajime coughs, rubbing his hands on his sweats. “After you gave me my present. I, uh...I wanted to kiss you.” He laughs, a weak little noise that dies as soon as it’s heard. “I wanted to kiss you so bad. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

He turns to Tooru and finds the other fixated on Hajime like he’s one of those recorded plays of an opposing team. The familiar, ugly gape of his mouth and the exaggerated wrinkle at his eyes diffuse the tautness in Hajime’s neck.

“You wanted to...wait, are you...” Tooru trails off, confused. “Is this. Is this a—what is this, what is going on right now—”

Hajime groans, pinching Tooru’s cheek between his fingers, impossibly irritated and fond at the same time. “Oh my god, you asshat, are you serious? I'm confessing; I literally just said I wanted to kiss you.”

“Oh.” Tooru blinks, leans back on a hand. “Ohh.”

Hajime feels his mouth twitch. “Yeah. Oh.”

All of a sudden, Tooru turns red faster than Hajime’s ever seen, like a thermometer placed in boiling hot water. Hajime imagines steam coming out of the ears and nearly bites his tongue in half. Tooru slaps a hand on Hajime’s face and pushes, the other pressed against his own mouth, where a wobbly whine can be heard.

“Oikawa, what the fuck?” Hajime says, wrapping his fingers around Tooru’s wrist and pulling.

“Don’t look at me!” Tooru cries, and no _way_ , is he sniffling?

“Are you _crying?_ ” Hajime asks, reaching for Tooru’s other hand and pulling it away too.

Tooru turns his head and tries to hide in his shoulder, pulling his knees up slightly and folding into himself. Hajime just stubbornly moves closer into Tooru’s space, peering up at him. He holds both of Tooru’s wrists and refuses to let them go, keeping them far apart and open.

“Oikawa?” He nudges Tooru’s knee with his own. “Oikawa.”

Tooru shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut. A tear seeps out from behind his right eye. Hajime’s frown softens and he lets go of Tooru’s wrist to place gentle fingers on the curve of his jaw. He guides Tooru away from the crook of his shoulder, soft and slow.

“Tooru.”

The name falls easily from his mouth, even after years of all kinds of variations on “Oikawa” and he knows it’s because Tooru is never anything else but that, in his head.

And Tooru finally lets his face crumple into his sloppy crying face, falling forward into Hajime and sending them dropping back onto the bed in a heap of hiccups and breathless laughter.

Like coming home, Hajime lets his arms wind around Tooru, lets his knee rest against Tooru’s hip and thigh and feels the realness of it—the weight and true solidity of his best friend cradled tight to him. He buries in nose in the spot just below Tooru’s ear and smiles into the skin and the baby hairs there. He can feel Tooru wipe his gross-ass snot on Hajime’s bare shoulder and still the giddiness keeps rolling in waves through his body and he laughs again, bright and free, and Tooru joins in, the two of them rocking slightly, side to side, caught up in each other.

“I feel like I just went through a lifetime’s worth of stress,” Hajime says, staring up at the ceiling. He’s still grinning, ear-to-ear. “I really thought you liked this one, you couldn’t stop smiling and stuff. You let him hang all over you. You _took him to a volleyball match_.”

Tooru snorts, and snuggles deeper into Hajime’s neck. “He invited himself—he was like that a lot, way too invested, I kept thinking he was gonna propose every time we went out.”

“Oh, yikes,” Hajime says, and then frowns. “Wait, so then how did he react when you broke up with him? Actually—how _did_ you break up? You look like you ran here the moment you got the email.”

Tooru’s ears go redder than Nekoma’s volleyball uniforms. “I, uh…might’ve have, actually, yeah, maybe, I don’t know.”

Hajime moves his head, but the angle’s all awkward and he can’t get a good look at Tooru but he’s pretty sure that’s guilt on his face. “Tooru. Tooru, you goat, please tell me you didn’t break up with him on the phone or something. At least tell me you did it in person, with your ugly pajamas and uglier hair. Tooru.”

A nervous laugh muffled against the spot between Hajime’s neck and shoulder is the answer he gets and Hajime slaps a hand over his face. He should scold Tooru, he really should, but he’s still high on relief and pure happiness, so a startled laugh bubbles up instead. “You’re so awful, Tooru, seriously.”

Surprisingly, there’s no immediate rebuttal but Tooru raises his head, blowing at his fringe and placing his hands over Hajime’s chest, propping his chin on them. His eyes rove over Hajime’s face, contemplative and wondering, with a deliberate slowness to it that comes from knowing they have all the time in the world now. Hajime does the same, curling a lock of soft, brown hair behind Tooru's ear with a finger. He traces over the mark at Tooru’s temple, rubbing at the faded indentation of it.

“Do you remember what I told you when I got that scar? You thought I was dying.” Tooru leans in just a bit more to place the lightest of kisses to Hajime’s chin, tentative and trembling just the slightest bit. His heart swells.

“Hmn, not really,” Hajime says, and Tooru half-heartedly fakes a gasp.

“My dying wishes, my last words and my best friend couldn’t even honour them.”

Hajime rolls his eyes, slides his hand lower on Tooru’s spine and revels at the way it makes Tooru’s lashes stutter, the uncertainty bleeding out out the grip he has on Hajime's shirt.

“You said you’d leave your power rangers action figures to me,” Hajime guesses, rubbing figure-eights into the fabric of Tooru’s shirt until it rides up and smooth skin meets his touch instead.

Tooru smiles, eyes sliding shut. “Mmmnope.”

“You told me to grab your stuffed pig plush because you didn’t want to die without it.”

“Uh-uh.”

“You apologized for breaking my mother’s prized china.”

Tooru flicks an eye open and pouts, “We both know it wasn’t me who did that.”

Hajime just hums innocently, and his nails tease the edge of Tooru’s pajama pants. He says, quietly, “I think I remember now.”

“Yeah?” Tooru breathes, inching further up Hajime’s chest.

“Mhm, it’s all coming back to me,” Hajime says, tapping a beat onto the small of Tooru’s back. “You said: I should’ve gone to Shiratorizawa.”

Tooru freezes above him, scant inches from his lips. His face is blank and Hajime fights to keep his gaze steady.

“You’re dead to me,” Tooru says and pushes at Hajime’s chest, trying violently to squirm his way out of Hajime’s unrelenting hold. “Let go of me, you filthy traitor, how dare you, in our bed, on this day, our _wedding_ day—”

“Tooru, Tooru, wait, I’m sorry,” Hajime chokes out between his laughter. “Hey, hey, stop, I’m sorry, it was just too good to pass up!”

Tooru keeps up the struggle, wiggling obnoxiously all over Hajime and normally that would annoy the hell out of him but he’s still running on endorphins so it’s doing something else, entirely. Hajime rushes to stop all the friction and ends up flipping them over to press Tooru down into the sheets, firmly, so he can’t move.

Tooru glares up at him, mouth opening in another whine, no doubt, but Hajime just lowers himself a little more on the arm he’s got curled up around Tooru’s head, hovering over him and says:

“I love you.”

Hajime counts his breaths. One, two, three. “That’s what you said.” His cheeks are flushed with embarrassment, with the cheesiness of everything. But he doesn't mind all that much, because they’re touching from toes to chest, legs hopelessly tangled together, fingers loosely, almost absentmindedly intertwined, and Tooru's gone all soft and pink.

“You were also pretty convinced you were dying. Wanted me to know that you loved me,” Hajime says, lips brushing the slope of Tooru’s forehead.

“Yeah,” Tooru mumbles. “Needed you to know.”

Hajime leaves a smile between Tooru’s brows, light and indulgent, “You remember what I said back, then?”

Against his throat, he feels a brush of lips and Tooru says it back, voice thick and wobbling, like he did when they were four and crouched in the spring mud, clutching to each other just like this.

 

 

(They get twelve minutes to themselves, and then Hajime gets knock after knock and question after question from his dorm mates about whether they’ve made up yet, or if they need condoms, spoken through the crack under his door.

He yells at them until they go away but because time is an illusion to these guys, twenty seconds later, Daisuke has his lips jammed under the door, saying how he’s really glad they’re back together— _and just how many of them thought Hajime and Tooru were dating?)_

 

 

“Oikawa, will you shut up about your ‘perfect date in space’ for one goddamn second, I’m _working_ here,” Hanamaki says, tongue poking out of his mouth and his fingers twisted in Shimura’s hair. Apparently, he’s supposed to be doing a short, simple braid. Privately, Hajime thinks it looks more like crazy anime hair from the 90s, and Shimura is only enabling Hanamaki, handing him brightly-coloured elastics and…tiny toy figurines, yup, that’s a lego man, why does she have a lego man in her bag, why does she have _three?_

“You’re just jealous Mattsun isn’t as romantic.” Tooru jabs his popsicle in Hanamaki’s direction, exuding haughtiness even with the sweat-soaked pink t-shirt and bright orange Hawaiian-patterned swimming shorts. Hajime feels his retinas burning. “We flew among the stars, Hajime and I, like Princess Orihime and her lover, Hikoboshi.”

“No one remind him that the story has them meeting only once a year,” Matsukawa says, yogurt on his chin. There’s a small pile of empty cartons next to him on the living room table.

Shimura slurps unnecessarily long at her soda, eyes closed and leaning into the fan whirring away in her face. “Mmmn, but Iwaizumi told me all you did was tour the place and look at the different types of aircrafts. You got, like, fifteen minutes in the simulator, tops.”

Tooru rolls on the floor—somehow avoiding dropping his popsicle on the ground—until he reaches where Hajime’s leaning against the couch. He then crawls into Hajime’s lap, despite the sweltering heat. Hajime groans, suffering. “You talk to Micchan about our dates?” Tooru asks, squirming around in Hajime’s arms like a cat high on catnip.

Hajime shares a significant look with Shimura and she holds up an OK sign. Seeing that, Tooru’s head pops up and swivels to fixate on her, and Hajime shoots a quick look at his ass to make sure there isn’t _actually_ a cat’s tail waving around.

“Wait, what was that, why did you guys look at each other like that,” Tooru says. He turns back to Hajime, and almost smashes their noses together in his haste. They end up looking cross-eyed at each other. “What do you guys talk about?”

Hajime doesn’t want to admit that two hours before the date, he called Shimura in a panic because he didn’t know what to wear, so he just takes the hand Tooru’s using to hold his ice cream and forcefully guides it back into his mouth to shut him up.

“KINKY,” Hanamaki and Matsukawa immediately say and Shimura follows up with a finger through the OK sign, eyebrows dancing on her face. Seriously, how do they wiggle so much.

“Clearly, I should’ve kept you three apart until the day I died,” Tooru laments, slumping onto Hajime’s shoulder, watching the other three high-five each other way too enthusiastically.

Hajime wholeheartedly agrees, mostly because the moment Shimura walked into his house to the four of them sitting around the table eating popsicles, fan whirring in the back and blowing hot air, she plain out said, “I’m gonna be honest, this looks like the start of a porno.”

Hanamaki immediately threw Matsukawa off of him and gathered Shimura into his arms, declaring them married. Matsukawa only dusted himself off and demanded why Hajime kept Shimura away from them for so long.

“Okay, but you two have no room to talk,” Hajime says. “Matsukawa got drunk a week ago and confessed to me the marks on your wrists in third year were not, in fact, because your sister made you carry her hair ties for a week, but because you two had kinky, naughty sex.”

Tooru lets out a delighted “OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH,” and Hajime smirks, watching the anguish unfurl in his friends’ eyes.

Hajime: infinity, Hanamaki and Matsukawa: fucking obliterated.

Matsukawa closes his eyes, shamed into silence so hard he literally tries to become a stone statue. Hanamaki just yells “Issei, you whore, I trusted you!” to the heavens, shaking his boyfriend in distress.

“Huh,” Shimura says, tipping the last of the soda into her mouth. “Somehow, not surprising.”

Hanamaki whips around and points an imperious finger at her. “You just met us, you know nothing.”

Shimura just jerks her chin towards the hand Matsukawa’s snuck under the hem of Hanamaki’s shorts and oh, wow, yeah, Hajime did not need to see that. Not so shamed, then, if he’s still doing that.

Hanamaki looks down, looks at his boyfriend, looks back at Shimura. “Yeah, okay.” And then he gets to his feet, dragging Matsukawa by the collar out of the room. “Excuse us.”

The three of them watch as Matsukawa lets it happen, eyes still closed. When the last of him has rounded the corner, the room is filled with only the sound of the fan and the background noise of an American TV show.

“Ten bucks, handjobs in the bathroom,” Shimura says, and Tooru snorts.

“No way I’m taking that bet, I’d lose.”

Hajime sighs, reaches for the remote and turns up the volume. “Couldn’t you guys have pretended that they wouldn’t and aren’t totally doing that right now? For my sake? I can never look at that bathroom the same way again.”

Tooru pats his thigh, licking the red stripe that's dripped down his arm from the popsicle. The shithead _knows_ that’s distracting as hell. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back in Yokohama soon enough and it’ll be Uncle and Auntie who have to use it, innocent to its recent defiling and the ghost orgasms left behind.”

“You literally could’ve chosen not to say any of that and yet you still did,” Hajime says flatly.

Tooru makes some sort of incomprehensible noise around his ice cream, lips stretched slick and red and Hajime pushes him so hard he skids a few inches on the tatami mats before falling on his side, yelping.

Shimura stands, taking hurried strides to the door. “Alright, alright, alright, alriiiiight, that is my cue, goodbye, you horny bastards.” And then she’s gone, door clicking shut behind her.

Hajime kind of feels bad for driving her out like that but Tooru’s got the popsicle in his mouth again, eyebrows wiggling excessively and Hajime’s not sure if the idiot knows it’s about as sexy as a banana peel halfway through decomposition.

“You are a turd,” he says and braces for the inevitable hurling of Tooru’s entire body mass in his direction. He’s completely right, of course, when a second later he has an armful of Tooru shouting right in his _damn ear_ , “Well, you’re _dating_ this turd!”

It’s too hot to do anything but fall backward and take Tooru with him. They sprawl on the cool floor, the only point of contact being their hands, barely brushing together but it’s still too much, fingers sticky with sweat and ice cream.

Hajime looks over at Tooru, watches the sweat sliding down his temple and is reminded of the first time Tooru went through a breakup, six years ago with that first girl.

He hums, thinking. “This makes me number six then.”

It takes Tooru a second to get it, blinking up at the ceiling fan, and then he returns Hajime’s gaze, sure and trusting.

“No, this makes you my last.”

“That’s so damn cheesy, even for you,” Hajime says, and leans forward to kiss Tooru silent before he can point out the pleased grin on Hajime’s face.

END

 

 

BONUS:

His parents find out like this: he walks into his living room, hand in hand with Tooru.

His dad looks up from his phone and lets out the loudest and most excessive sigh of relief. He claps a hand over his forehead and stares unseeingly at the picture of Hajime’s dead grandfather hanging on the wall. Sometimes he wonders if his dad is supposed to be Tooru’s and they just got confused that one time they met at the hospital and went home with the wrong wife. That happens, right?

Mom just smiles serenely at them, and gives a simple thumbs-up.

“Oh thank God, I was so worried I messed up.” Dad says, gesturing expansively and breathing deep. “Sure, I _looked_ calm but _inside_ I kept thinking about you two poor red bean buns and—you know your mom was supposed to have that talk with you, right, and that reminds me, have you had sex education—”

“Yes! Okay! Thank you. For that. Alright. We. Are going upstairs,” Hajime says, tugging hard with his hand when Tooru snickers.

“I won’t ask to keep the door open but I hope you know not to try anything while your parents are still sitting here!” His dad calls after them and they both go bright red like the teenagers they still kind of are.

They take the stairs up to his room two at a time, bumping together in the small space, refusing to walk in any way but side by side. Hajime opens his bedroom door and they take two steps in and stop, turning to stare at each other.

Between one breath and another, they feel an uncertainty hanging, feel the change in them on the verge of eclipsing the past and they watch it happen: Hajime-and-Tooru to Iwa-chan and Oikawa, and now to something else that they don’t yet have a name for.

A childhood room shifts to fit them, though nothing visibly warps, and the metamorphosis settles nice and comfortable over them. They spend the rest of the day relearning how far their boundaries go, where one ends and the other starts, clumsy hands and eager hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, all that pain these two but esp Hajime go through is bc Tooru misunderstood and thought Hajime was calling Shimura pretty when we all know Hajime was staring at Tooru when he said that lmao sorry to these two kids!!!!!
> 
> please leave a comment and tell me what you like!! even if it's a keysmash lmao that's what i do
> 
> [my tumblr](http://hiuythn.tumblr.com)  
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/hiuythn)
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> also special thanks @ my friend sanna?????????? thx for telling me you'd read my iwaoi stuff bc i literally almost dropped this


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